Rosatom seeks guarantees from Bulgaria for Belene NPP project - report

Bulgaria should propose a mechanism which guarantees that investors in the Belene NPP project return their investment, Kirill Komarov, first deputy director general of Rosatom, has said, according to a report by business news outlet Capital.bg.

Bulgaria's government has pledged on several occasions that it will seek to implement the project on a market basis with no state guarantees. The country plans to participate in the project company only via a non-monetary contribution - the nuclear reactors and other equipment that has already been manufactured, the construction site and the respective licences.

Earlier this year, Rosatom signed memorandums of understanding (MoU) with France's Framatome and US-based General Electric Steam Power to submit a joint bid in a tender for construction of Belene NPP. In line with the agreements, if Rosatom wins the tender for selection of a strategic investor in the project, GE Steam Power will supply the turbine equipment, while Framatome will deliver equipment for the power plant's automated process control systems.

However, Komarov has said that the consortium does not include all the international companies which could potentially join it.

In June 2018, the Bulgarian parliament mandated energy minister Temenuzhka Petkova to seek potential strategic investors willing to build a nuclear power plant in Belene, on the Danube river - a project abandoned since 2012 which the government aims to revive.

In December 2016, following international arbitration, Bulgaria paid some 600 million euro ($713 million) in compensation to Russia's Atomstroyexport for the equipment already manufactured by the company for the project. The equipment is now stored at the site designated for the construction of the power plant.

($ = 0.8418 euro)