Sofia. Russian company Atomstroyexport, which was picked to build Bulgaria’s nuclear power plant in the Danube town of Belene, said it has signed an annex with national power utility NEK to supply the corpus, steam generator and the turbine for the plant’s first block, as the online English edition of Dnenvik Daily reported.
The Bulgarian party was tight-lipped on the matter.
Last week the Government voted on granting BGN 300 million to the newly-founded Bulgarian Energy Holding to buy equipment for the plant.
The Belene NPP project is unfavourable for Bulgaria and is a Trojan horse of Russian interests in Europe, commented Georgi Kaschiev of the Vienna risk research institute, who took part in the second workshop on the nuclear project gathering NGOs, mayors and MPs.
The project is opportunistic with Bulgaria expected to have more energy than it needs in 2015 over heavy TPP output, Kaschiev said.
The project’s price tag will more than double from the initial EUR 4 billion on soaring materials and engineering services prices, Kaschiev forecast.
Neither will the investor keep up promises of creating many local jobs having already hired 2,500 Russian engineers, technicians, welders and other workers, according to the expert.