November 12 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's largest coal mining and electricity generation complex Maritsa East is expected to call at the end of the first quarter of 2009 a tender for the construction of a power plant to be fed by the mine, local media reported on Wednesday.
“By the end of the first quarter of next year we will be able to practically launch the procedure for selecting a contractor for the project for the construction of the new capacity,” Maritsa East CEO Ivan Markov told Pari daily in an interview.
By the end of this year the mine will choose among five bidders an adviser to prepare the tender procedure, Markov added without naming the candidates.
Italy's Enel, U.S.-based AES, German companies RWE and E.ON, and a consortium of Czech group CEZ and a Bulgarian energy tycoon have expressed interest in building the 600-megawatt (MW) plant.
Investors will be required to build a plant employing state-of-the-art technology with minimum carbon dioxide emissions, Markov said.
The Maritsa East Mines supplies coal to Bulgaria's largest power plant, Maritsa East II, which has an installed capacity of 1,450 MW, and Enel's Maritsa East III plant of 900 MW. The mining complex plans to produce some 25.1 million tonnes of coal in 2008, two million tonnes above its annual plan. It plans to raise its output to 28 million tonnes by 2010.
Bulgaria, which joined the European Union in 2007, relies heavily on its coal-fired power plants after it closed down four of the six reactors of its sole Kozloduy nuclear power plant. To ease EU safety concerns, it shut down the first pair of 440 MW reactors at Kozloduy in 2002 and then a second pair at the end of 2006. At present Kozloduy operates two reactors of 1,000 MW each.