September 28 (SeeNews) - German power group RWE is adhering to the Belene nuclear power plant project in Bulgaria, local media reported on Monday.
"They are not giving up but they want to know how much it will cost," state-owned radio broadcaster BNR quoted Prime Minister Boyko Borisov as saying in the city of Plovdiv, where he attended the opening of an international fair.
Borisov, who held talks with a RWE delegation in Sofia on Monday morning, said they were tough but they will continue until a solution is found, state-run BTA news agency quoted him as saying earlier on Monday in Sofia.
Borisov spoke several days after German media reported that RWE considered withdrawing from the project due to safety concerns and soaring costs. The key concerns regarding the project have to do with the safety of the Russian nuclear reactors for the future power station, the location of the plant site in a zone considered seismic, and the rising costs, German daily Die Welt (www.welt.de) reported on Friday.
The future of the project should be decided by the end of October, BTA quoted Borisov as saying.
RWE and Bulgaria's power grid operator NEK have teamed up in a 49:51 joint venture in the project for the 2,000-megawatt plant to be built by Russia's Atomstroyexport in Belene, on the Danube river.
The value of the construction works is set at around 4.0 billion euro ($5.9 billion) in the contract between NEK and Atomstroyexport. The contract contains an inflation adjustment clause for the cost of the plant but does not include the price of construction of adjacent infrastructure. The preparation of the construction site in Belene started last year but raising funds for the actual construction works has been a key obstacle to further progress on the project.
According to different estimates published in Bulgarian media, project costs may run up to 6.0 billion or even 10 billion euro.
($ = 0.6831 euro)
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