Bulgaria’s electricity exports will grow by around 8 percent to 6.1 billion kilowatt hours this year, from 5.45 billion kilowatt hours in 2003, the financial daily Dnevnik reported yesterday. The rise will bring the EU candidade state, the leading energy exporter in the Balkans, back to its normal level of electricity sales abroad after the closing of nuclear reactors and a cancellation of Turkish contracts cut exports in 2003. The director of state power export monopoly NETC, Vassil Anastov, was cited by Dnevnik as saying Greece was taking most of the Bulgarian power, at a rate of around 500 megawatts a day. Romania came next, with some 100MW, and the Former Yogoslav Republic of Macedonia was taking between 50 and 100MW a day, Dnevnik said. Seperately, it was announced yesterday that Austrian power firm EVN signed a deal yesterday to buy 67 percent of Bulgaria’s Plovdiv and Stara Zagora electricity distributors for 271 million euros. EVN won a tender in July to buy the power utilities, which Bulgaria is selling alongside five other distributors. The government has said it wants to complete the sales by the end of the month.
Helpe Tender
Greek refinery Hellenic Petroleum has issued a tender to buy a 30,000-ton cargo of low sulfur straight-run fuel oil for November delivery, Mediterranean oil traders said yesterday. The tender comes amid a spate of planned refinery maintenance.