Bulgaria is freezing the construction of its
second nuclear power plant at Belene because of the lack of guarantees
for the profitability of the project, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov
announced.
“There is no clear indication when Bulgaria will get back the money
it will invest in the Belene Nuclear Power Plant. We are ready to sit
down immediately and discuss the price of the investment with anybody
who can show me a price. Everything else is just empty talk,” the PM
declared after meeting with the ambassadors of the EU member states in
Sofia.
Borisov explained that “Bulgaria is freezing the construction of the
Belene plant because we are continuing to search for a strategic foreign
investor.”
He emphasized the cost of the planned Belene NPP by comparing it with
the contract for USD 20 B signed recently by Russia and Turkey for the
construction of four nuclear reactors in Turkey’s first NPP.
“If somebody tells me where I can get BGN 26 B to construct the
Belene plant, and when we will get back our money, let them accuse me of
delaying the project. This is the final balance,” the Bulgarian Prime
Minister declared.
After its initial start in the late 1980s, the Belene project was
restarted in 2008 by the Socialist government of Sergey Stanishev. It
was estimated to cost about EUR 4 B, half of which were supposed to come
from the German energy company RWE in exchange for a 49% stake in the
plant.
After the Borisov government took office in the summer of 2009,
Bulgarian officials estimated the price of the plant at about EUR 10 B.
In the fall of 2009, RWE withdrew from the project, prompting the
Borisov government to start searching anew for a strategic foreign
investor.
The Russian government, whose company Atomstroyexport is supposed to
construct the future nuclear plant, has offered Bulgaria state loans on a
couple of occasions – EUR 4 B in the spring of 2009, and EUR 2 in the
spring of 2010, in order to keep the construction going until Bulgaria
finds an investor.
However, those offers have been rejected by both the Stanishev and
the Borisov governments. Prime Minister Borisov has explicitly made it
clear that Bulgaria will not construct the new 2000 MW plant unless it
finds a strategic investor from Western Europe.
(by www.novinite.com, 11/06/2010)