SOFIA (Bulgaria), November 14 (SeeNews) – Bulgaria’s nuclear power plant Kozloduy said on Friday it has paid back early a $52.5 million (41.9 million euro) loan to Russia's Roseximbank.
Kozloduy repaid in late October the remaining $42.7 million in principal and $1.6 million in interest on the loan due by 2021, it said in a statement.
''The purpose was to avoid currency risk to Kozloduy's balance of payments stemming from the fact that the company's revenue is denominated in levs and euro, while costs on servicing the loan's principal and interest are denominated in U.S. dollars,'' it said.
Through the early loan repayment Kozloduy saved 7.7 million levs ($4.9 million/3.9 million euro) from the favourable exchange rate of the dollar against the lev and 22.8 million levs in interest payments .
The loan was used for the upgrade of Kozloduy's two operating units of 1,000 megawatts (MW) each.
Bulgaria, which joined the European Union in 2007, has closed down four of the six Kozloduy units to ease EU safety concerns.
(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)
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