March 16 (SeeNews) - China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) has sent a letter of interest (LoI) to invest in the construction of Belene nuclear power plant (NPP), energy minister Temenuzhka Petkova said on Friday, as quoted by broadcaster BNR.
The LoI was sent by the Chinese company in mid-February, Petkova said, quoted by national radio broadcaster BNR.
In December, after meetings with Bulgarian government officials, CNNC and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) expressed interest to be included in the construction of the nuclear power plant.
Bulgaria's energy ministry should submit with parliament by the end of June specific proposals for the possible revival of a project for the construction of a second nuclear power plant (NPP) in the country.
On March 6, Bulgarian prime minister Boyko Borissov acquainted Russia's president Vladimir Putin in a telephone conversation with his idea to revive Belene NPP project as a pan-Balkan project, noting that it was backed up by the Western Balkan countries.
In 2008, Bulgaria hired Atomstroyexport to build a nuclear plant in Belene, reviving a project that had been mothballed for nearly two decades. After the project made scant headway, Sofia finally abandoned it with a parliament decision in February 2013. The government cancelled the project a year earlier due to disagreement over its estimated cost and failure to attract a strategic investor.
In December 2016, NEK paid 601.6 million euro ($704.9 million) as compensation to Atomstroyexport, a subsidiary of Russia's Rosatom, for the equipment manufactured by the Russian company for the Belene project, which Bulgaria had abandoned.
($=0.8139 euro)