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Bulgaria Wants ? 300 Million from Atromexportstroy for NPP Belene Facilities

Bulgaria's National Electrical Company started tough negotiations with the Russian company Atomexportstroy on the price of the old facilities on the building site of NPP Belene. The haggle between NEC's working group and the Russians should be over by the New Year. Atomexportstroy's offer reads that the company takes the commitment to buy out the old facilities at the site of NPP Belene and use them at the Kalininskaya nuclear power plant. Now it turns out that the Russians do not agree to pay the sum provided in the assessment report of NEC. Sources from the NEC working group told The Standart that the Bulgarian state wanted about 300 million euro for NPP Belene's reactor, but the Russians were willing to pay only 100 million euro.
"We want them to pay one price and they say they will pay three times less," said Bogomil Manchev, Chairman of the Bulgarian Atomic Forum.
To his words, the situation will become very complicated if the two parties fail to reach an agreement on the price of the facilities.
The crisis with the workers on the building site of Bulgaria's second nuclear power plant is getting more and more serious. In addition to construction workers and welders, it now turns out that we do not have enough nuclear engineers, who to operate the power plant when it is ready to function. This transpired at a conference yesterday with the participation of representatives of the Bulgarian universities, energy experts and businesspeople.
In the contract for the construction of NPP Belene it is provided that by 2013 the Russian company should train 529 specialists, as the power plant's first reactor is scheduled to be put into operation, then.
This is included in the price of the project, said Yordan Georgiev, Head of the NPP Belene Enterprise with the National Electrical Company.
"The problem is, however, that the Bulgarian universities do not produce enough young specialists in Nuclear Physics," said Vanya Dobreva, Deputy Minister of Education.
So as to attract more young people to the field of nuclear engineering, the National Electrical Company will found twelve scholarships for students in Nuclear Physics.

Ivaylo Velkov