Russia's Izhorskiye Zavody, part of OMZ Group, has launched check assemble of the reactor vessel VVER-1000 for the first energy unit at Bulgaria's Belene NPP, even though Bulgaria is yet to say officially whether it wants the power plant.

For the first two reactors of the second Bulgarian nuclear power plant Izhorskiye Zavody plans to produce 2 reactor vessels internals, 2 top blocks, 2 pressurizers, 8 blocks of steam generators with collectors of the coolant (steam generators, four corps had already been shipped to OJSC ZIO- Podolsk), 2 sets of units for the main circulation pipeline, as well as eight accumulator tanks of the core emergency cooling system and 16 tanks of passive protection of the reactor core, 4-traders has informed.

The check assembly of the reactor vessel internals and the cover of the upper unit is one of the final stages in the manufacturing process of the reactor vessel prior to delivery to the customer.

Bulgaria has been haggling with Russia's state corporation Rosatom and its subsidiary Atomstroyexport for the price of the 2000 MW Belene NPP – and for other issues – for years.

After it was first started in the 1980s, the construction of Bulgaria's second nuclear power plant at Belene on the Danube was stopped in the early 1990s over lack of money and environmental protests.

After selecting the Russian company Atomstroyexport, a subsidiary of Rosatom, to build a two 1000-MW reactors at Belene and signing a deal for the construction, allegedly for the price of EUR 3.997 B, with the Russians during Putin's visit to Sofia in January 2008, in September 2008, former Prime Minister Stanishev gave a formal restart of the building of Belene. At the end of 2008, German energy giant RWE was selected as a strategic foreign investor for the plant.

The Belene NPP was de facto frozen in the fall of 2009 when the previously selected strategic investor, the German company RWE, which was supposed to provide EUR 2 B in exchange for a 49% stake, pulled out.