Russia, Bulgaria sign memorandum on Belene nuclear power plant

xinhua.net

English.news.cn 2010-12-01 06:08:06

SOFIA, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- Russian corporation Rosatom and Bulgaria's National Electric Company NEK signed here Tuesday a memorandum on the Belene nuclear power plant (NPP) trying to revive this project.
The 2,000-megawatt-plant was approved in 2005. The Russian company Atomstroyexport, an engineering branch of the state-owned "Rosatom", won the bid to build this NPP in 2006, but the project was frozen after Boyko Borissov's GERB party came to power in July 2009.
"What we signed now, are principles for establishing a project company," Bulgarian Energy Minister Traicho Traikov said after the signing ceremony. This agreement provides a framework, it has no binding force, Traikov added.
"It is scheduled that the project company will be set up in four months," Sergei Kirienko, head of Rosatom said. The project company will be the owner of the Belene NPP but the NPP will be built by the company that won the tender, Kirienko said.
According to him, the price will be approved by the future shareholders, and will not exceed 6.298 billion euro (some 8.19 billion U.S. dollars).
The Finnish energy group Fortum and the French engineering company Altran joined the memorandum on Tuesday, and according to Traikov and Kirienko the future group of shareholders is open for other investors as well.
So far, NEK will keep a 51 percent share, and 40 percent to 45 percent are to be held by Rosatom but it could be changed, Kirienko said. Russia is ready to fully fund construction of this NPP, he added.
Editor: yan

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