Bulgaria Govt Urged to List Belene N-Plant on Stock Exchange

A file picture dated 03 September 2008 showing workers during the construction of the first 1 000 MW unit of the second nuclear plant of Belene, Bulgaria. Photo by EPA/BGNES

Bulgaria's government should list on the stock exchange the new company for the second nuclear power plant at Belene to test the economic viability of the controversial project, the chairman of the country's energy forum has suggested.

"This is a process, which can take up to six months, having in mind all the analyses and audits, which have to be made. The interest of local and foreign investors, which the shares will generate, will speak tons about the acceptability of the project," Ivan Hinovski argues.

Sofia and Moscow still have not agreed whether to build two 1,000 megawatt nuclear reactors at Belene, in the north. Days after 11th annex to the main contract between Bulgaria and Russia on the construction of the Belene nuke plant expired on March 31st 2011, lack of clarity reigns. Earlier in March Rosatom demanded that the parties sign the next agreement then.

Meanwhile it emerged that Minister Traikov will pay a working visit to Moscow on April 6-7 and is scheduled to confer with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shmatko.

Experts have warned that should the need for another notification of the EIA-procedure arises, the delay in launching the project will be up to six months.

Europe's atomic energy anxiety found Bulgaria hesitating over plans to get a second nuclear plant, in Belene, on the Danube.

For a country that has suffered from the Chernobyl disaster and decommissioned several nuclear reactors over safety concerns, Bulgaria's pursuit of atomic energy is controversial at best.

The accident at Japan's Fukushima plant only came to fuel further concerns about nuclear power and increased its unpopularity, at least among ordinary people, while the government is uncertain over the new reactors.

The plant was originally to be built by Russian company Atomstroyexport, a subsidiary of Rosatom, for EUR 4 B. The firm had signed a contract with the previous, Socialist-led government, swept from power by Borisov's conservative GERB party swept in the 2009 elections.

Due to the delays in the launch of the construction works, stalled over price disputes and funding problems, Russia now says the project construction price should be increased to EUR 6.3 B.

Sofia insists it will pay no more than EUR 5 M.

Bulgaria's new center-right government suspended the construction of the nuclear power plant last year until it finds a new investor and funds to complete the project at Belene, on the Danube, 180 kilometres northeast of the capital Sofia.

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