SOFIA, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Bulgaria urged German power utility RWE on Thursday to reject pressure from green activists and approve a deal to become a strategic investor in a planned 4.0 billion euro ($5.16 billion) nuclear power plant.
Deputy Energy Minister Yavor Kuyumdzhiev said Bulgaria will wait for RWE's supervisory board approval of the deal until the spring of 2009, when construction of the 2,000 megawatt Belene plant should start.
Bulgaria and the strategic investor in the Belene nuclear powerplant, German RWE, would put pen to paper as soon as possible, said Mardik Papazyan, executive director of national power grid operator NEK.
The state would add 300 million leva to the operator’s capital so that it could order the equipment, which was expected to long to produce as Russian plants were overwhelmed with orders for Chinese and Turkish nuclear plants, Papazyan said.
Bulgaria's Cabinet plans to inject 300 million leva into the National Electric Company (NEK) to cover the costs of the transitional stage of building the nuclear power plant at Belene on the Danube River, the Government press service said in a statement.
The cash would be given as an equity hike in NEK, which is now part of the Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH) that the Cabinet created in September 2009 by integrating Maritza Iztok mines, Maritza Iztok 2 thermal power plant and NEK into the holding structure of gas provider Bulgargaz.
SOFIA, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Bulgaria is close to choosing a winner between Belgian energy firm Electrabel and Germany's RWE AG to make a strategic investment in a planned 4 billion euro ($5.6 billion) nuclear plant, Bulgarian utility NEK said on Thursday.
In August, state-owned NEK asked RWE and Electrabel, owned by France's GDF Suez, to improve their offers for a 49 percent stake in the plant it is building to restore Bulgaria's position as a leading power exporter in southeastern Europe.
The groundbreaking ceremony for the official start of construction on the second Bulgarian Belene nuclear power plant is scheduled for September 3. Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev will turn the first sod, according to the Bulgarian Socialist Party’s press centre in the northern city of Pleven, as quoted by Bulgarian-language daily Dnevnik.
Bulgaria's power grid operator the National Electricity Company (NEC) launched the final round of talks with Germany's RWE and Belgium's Electrabel, who are bidding to become strategic investors in Belene nuclear power plant, sources close to the procedure said, as quoted by mediapool.bg on April 3.
NEC wants the two candidates to clarify their offers for a 49 per cent stake in the company that will build and run Belene. The two 1000MW reactors of the plant are scheduled to be connected to the power grid by 2014.
(AP) SOFIA, Bulgaria — Bulgaria has shortlisted Germany's RWE Power and Belgian Electrabel SA as strategic investors in a second nuclear plant, the state-owned NEK power utility said Tuesday.
NEK is seeking investors for a stake of up to 49 percent stake in the Belene Power Company, which will own and operate the new nuclear power plant.
Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:04am EST
SOFIA, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Bulgaria's state power utility NEK said on Thursday it had asked strategic investors to file improved offers to acquire a 49-percent stake in a planned new nuclear power plant by Jan. 9.
NEK executive director Lyubomir Velkov told reporters all five short-listed bidders had been invited to sweeten their bids for the 2,000 megawatt, 4.0 billion euro ($5.75 billion) power plant at the Danube river town of Belene.
(Novinite) Bulgaria will be able to start construction works on the planned Belene nuclear power plant no sooner than 2009, the head of the country's nuclear regulator said on Monday.
The regulator is yet to rule on the technical details of the project and the proposed safety measures, said Sergey Tsochev, who chairs Bulgaria's Nuclear Regulation Agency.
Fri Dec 7, 2007 2:13pm GMT
BRUSSELS, Dec 7 (Reuters) - The European Commission gave a green light o the construction of a new, 4-billion-euro ($5.82 billion) nuclear power plant in Bulgaria with capacity of 2,000 megawatts, it said on Friday.
"The Commission has decided today to give a favourable opinion to the initiative of Natsionalna Elektricheska Kompania (NETC) of Bulgaria to build a new nuclear power plant at the site of Belene," the EU executive said in a statement.
