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.
By Sami Torma
HELSINKI, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Finland is pressing ahead with construction of its fifth nuclear reactor but the plant has faced long delays and seems unlikely to herald a quick revival of Europe's atomic industry.
Construction of the reactor -- one of only two major atomic projects underway in largely nuclear-sceptical Western Europe -- was originally scheduled to start in 2009 but construction delays and rising costs have now pushed that back to 2011.
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.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - German engineering conglomerate Siemens signed an agreement on Tuesday with Russia to help the country boost nuclear power generation.
Russia's atomic energy agency, known as Rosatom, said its chief, Sergei Kiriyenko, had signed the memorandum in Moscow with Rudi Lamprecht, a member of Siemens' managing board.
