SOFIA, March 28 (Reuters) - Bulgaria has abandoned plans to build the 2,000 megawatt Belene nuclear power plant on the Danube River and will construct a new gas power plant instead, Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said on Wednesday.
The Belene project has failed to attract serious foreign investors in the past three years after Germany's RWE pulled out in 2009 due to funding concerns.
Russia's state nuclear company Atomstroyexport – which is technically supposed to build Bulgaria's Belene NPP – is facing severe shortages, according to a freshly leaked diplomatic cable of the US ambassador in Moscow.
The cable by John Beyrle, US Ambassador to Russia who was the US Ambassador to Bulgaria before going to Moscow, dated April 3, 2009, was released Thursday by WikiLeaks and their Bulgarian partner Bivol.bg.
Bulgarians "risk being cold" this winter if the government did not move forward with the Russian energy projects. This is what Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin said, off-the-record, to his Bulgarian counterpart, Boyko Borisov, during the summit in Gdansk in September, 2009. The tone of the sentence in question is not clear, we cannot judge if it was threatening enough, but obviously it seriously impressed Borisov in order for him to report it in a timely manner and for Putin’s words to find their place in the classified documents of the American diplomacy.
Initial construction work at the Belarus nuclear power plant will begin in August or September 2011, First Vice Prime Minister Vladimir Smeashko said on Monday, February 14.
"We are beginning to build a nuclear power plant this year. The preparatory period is drawing to an end, the document has been signed, according to which initial construction work will begin from the end of August or the beginning of September," he said.
Russian nuclear power engineering company Atomstroyexport has advised its owner, state power corporation Rosatom, to drop Bulgaria's Belene nuclear power project, French daily La Tribune reported, citing a letter that Atomstroyexport sent to its parent.
Rosatom told Dnevnik it would not comment on the letter as it was an internal document and the company was yet to decide whether to exit the project. The proposed withdrawal would be considered a possibility only if Rosatom failed to sign its 12th consecutive agreement with Bulgaria, the company said.
While RWE insisted that its withdrawal from the project, which has yet to get off the ground, was due entirely to financial concerns, the February 2009 secret US embassy cable indicates that safety concerns and shady business practices by other partners were a factor in the German firm's decision to leave in October 2009.
Bulgarian Parliament Chair Tsacheva has made promising hints about the fate of the Belene nuclear power plant. Photo by BGNES
Bulgarian will for sure build its second nuclear power plant at Belene, Parliament Chair Tsetska Tsacheva has declared.
CEZ AS, the Czech Republic’s largest power producer, will delay the construction of two additional reactors at its Temelin nuclear power plant, Hospodarske Noviny reports, citing Industry and Trade Minister Martin Kocourek.
The construction could be delayed by as much as several years, the newspaper said, citing an unidentified person from the company. The main reason is uncertain demand for electricity after 2020, according to the report.
Bulgaria aims to limit the cost of the Belene nuclear plant being built by Russia’s ZAO Atomstroyexport to 7 billion euros ($8.8 billion), Prime Minister Boiko Borissov said.
Borissov met today with Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov in Sofia to discuss joint energy projects including construction of the 2,000-megawatt power plant on the Danube river, natural-gas supply and the South Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Western Europe via Bulgaria.
MINSK, 22 January (BelTA) – The construction of the nuclear power plant in Belarus will bring down energy production prime cost by 20%, Deputy Energy Minister of Belarus Mikhail Mikhadyuk said during the online conference on the BelTA website on 22 January.
“The study conducted by the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus revealed that after the nuclear power plant is commissioned the prime cost of electric energy production will be reduced by about 20%, the calculations however did not take into consideration the increase in gas prices. The purchase of natural gas will decrease by 4-5 billion cubic meters,” the Deputy Energy Minister said.
