Kosovo Halves Capacity of 2,000 MW Power Plant Project - Reuters

"We are looking to restructure the project," Shiroka-Pula said. "The first phase will start with 500 megawatts. In a global crisis time, the investors are not interested in investing in such big power plants and also the banks are not ready to give loans."

Kosovo called a tender in 2006 to build the 3.5 billion euro ($5.2 billion) power plant and picked three international consortia and Germany's energy group RWE to advance to the second stage of the prequalification procedure. RWE and the tie-in comprising Germany's Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg and U.S.-based Washington Group International backed out of the procedure earlier this year.

That narrowed the field to just two bidders: the partnership between Czech CEZ and U.S. AES and that of Italy's Enel and Greece's Public Power Corp's Sencap.

Shiroka-Pula further told Reuters that the new project would be offered to the two remaining bidders, but if a deal was not reached then the ministry would contact the companies that ended their offers.

"The investors that left the race went out because of the financial crisis," she said. "Now with the new plan they will be able to come again."

She said the contract with the possible winner would hopefully be signed "sometime during 2010".

Kosovo possesses the world's fifth-largest proven coal reserves, estimated at 12 billion metric tonnes, but suffers power cuts mainly due to outdated facilities and a lack of funds for extraction and prospecting.

Kosovo will be left only with its 700 MW Kosova B coal-fired power plant after 2015 when the 800 MW Kosova A, built in the 1960s, should be shut down as it falls short of relevant environmental standards.