News

Bulgaria Guarantees Belene NPP Construction with EUR 600 M

Bulgaria's state treasury will provide 600 million euro to guarantee the construction of NPP Belene, Bulgaria's Council of Ministers decided yesterday. The funds will be provided as a warranty for the provision of loans from Euratom and the European Investment Bank (EIB) in 2008.
With its decision, Bulgaria's Cabinet explicitly backs the majority investor of the project - Bulgarian National Electric Company (NEC).
Meanwhile, it transpired that Brussels is ready with its assessment on the financing scheme and the Russian technology to be used in the NPP Belene  construction. The decision is to be made ppublic by the end of 2007.
Atomstroyexport announced they were not concerned with the answer of the EU, because they had all grounds to believe it would be positive. But it is mainly the decision of Brussels that is one of the stumbling blocks for the banks to provide loans for the construction of the NPP Belene.
NEC fears that in case the answer of Brussels is negative this may scare away the banks, thus hindering the provision of funds for the Belene nuke.
As the Standart has already wrote, there is a possibility that the construction costs of Belene will up by about 30%. But how this might happen will be specified in the agreement between NEC and Atomstroyexport. The agreement has to be signed by the end of 2007.

Ivailo Velkov