Belene Nuclear Power Plant

The Ukrainian company "Energoatom" announced that it will not sign an agreement with Russia for the purchase of nuclear reactors and other Russian-made energy equipment from Bulgaria, reported the Ukrainian news agency "Ukrinform".

The final signing of an engineering contract with the American company "Westinghouse" for the construction of two units at the site of the Kozloduy NPP is pending. This was announced by the acting Deputy Minister of Energy Elenko Bozhkov:

"I replaced the head of management in my first months as minister because of intelligence reports about the leadership's potential ties to Russia and corruption schemes." This was announced by the Acting Minister of Energy on bTV.

"They mentioned the name of Alexander Nikolov, whom I replaced. He is now on the 'Magnitsky' list."

"Bulgaria did not make the right decision regarding the old contract with Gazprom. There is no way to sign a new contract. Every step is a big problem. We are going to arbitration, most likely."

Brussels will stand behind Bulgaria if it decides to complete the Belene NPP. This is clear from the words of Vice President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans. He assures that nuclear energy will play a role in the future that the EC has nothing against its use, but each country must decide for itself.

US-based NuScale Power said it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bulgaria's Kozloduy nuclear power plant (NPP) on the possible deployment of NuScale's small modular reactor (SMR) technology at the Bulgarian plant.

Bulgaria's government approved Wednesday plans to add a new reactor at its Soviet-era nuclear power plant at Kozloduy, effectively ditching another project to build a new plant at Belene.

"After the old reactors were pulled out of operation, it is very important that we received a license for the Units 5 and 6 of the Kozloduy NPP for another ten years", noted Borisov.

All 5 companies from the shortlist of approved strategic investors for Belene NPP have confirmed their offers. The deadline was January 31st. The shortlisted companies are the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), Atomenergoprom AD which is part of Rosatom, Korea Hydro-Nuclear Power, Framatome SAS - France and General Electric - USA.

Five companies have been shortlisted for negotiations on the Belene Nuclear Power Plant project, Bulgarian Energy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova told Parliament's Energy Committee on December 19.