European nuclear safety requirements may cause Bulgaria to lose its strategic position as a top energy exporter in the Balkans in 2007-2008, Energy and Economy Minister Rumen Ovcharov said on Friday.
Bulgaria had exported about 7.2 billion kilowatt-hours of energy in 2005 but "the years 2007-2008 might prove critical and Bulgaria risks to lose its strategic position as the biggest energy exporter in the region", Ovcharov told an energy conference in Sofia.
Ovcharov told AFP in an interview on Wednesday that the closing in 2006 of two old but revamped 440-megawatt reactors at its nuclear plant at Kozloduy, in the north-west, would force Bulgaria to cut all its energy exports.
Bulgaria would still be able to generate enough to satisfy its own energy needs, he added.
The Balkan state, which aims to join the European Union in 2007, accepted EU-safety requirements during its accession negotiations and agreed to close down four of its six nuclear reactors at Kozloduy.
In 2002 it closed its two oldest 440-megawatt reactors, number one and two. The number three and four reactors are also to be closed down in 2006, despite being recently modernised. "It is difficult to explain why the (number three and four) reactors have to be closed when they function well and enable Bulgaria to cover up for the energy deficit on the Balkans," Ovcharov told AFP.
He referred to a 2004 report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), saying the UN nuclear energy watchdog was satisfied with the state of reactors three and four.
Bulgaria is to lose "a production capacity of almost 2,000 megawatts. If we have to construct four new reactors nowadays they will cost us four billion euros," Ovcharov added.
But as "the Bulgarian government respects its engagements to the EU...and we expect that our European partners will also respect theirs", he said.
Bulgaria is due to join the 25-member bloc on January 1, 2007 but its accession is still threatened with postponement of one year in case of major failures to live up to Brussels-pressed requirements.
Sofia is also planning to make up for its lost energy capacity by constructing a new 2,000-megawatt power plant at Belene, east of Kozloduy, and have the first of its two 1,000-megawatt reactors operational by 2011.