Bulgaria and Russia Agree On Financing Two New Bulgarian Nuclear Reactors.

[NNadir]

Bulgarian and Russian interests have agreed to take major stakes in the two-reactor Belene project, while suppliers could take equity under an in-kind arrangement. A memorandum of understanding completed in Sofia on 30 November marks a new phase for
running and so-far unsuccessful Belene project.

Almost exactly three years ago Bulgaria's National Electricity Company (NEK) agreed to develop the new nuclear power plant with AtomStroyExport of Russia after a competitive tender process. A contract for engineering, procurement and construction followed in January 2008. NEK and the Bulgarian government tried unsuccessfully to reach terms with RWE as a major shareholder after attracting a strong roster of interested parties from the large utilities or Europe.

The new arrangement will see NEK take 51% of the project company, Belene Power Company, with Russia's Rosatom taking 49%. Both are then required to arrange debt and equity finance in proportion to their share and attract other investors. NEK's stake is far beyond the 20% it hoped to have under previous finance schemes.

According to terms in the MoU the project company should be established and registered within six months and construction should start after ten months - by 30 September 2011. The aim is to bring the first reactor into operation by 2016 and the second by 2017.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C_Belene_investors_framework_0112101.html">Belene investors framework.

The deal is fraught with irony.

The original Russian built reactors at Belene were operating just fine when Russian Gas Executive Gerhard Schroeder - who then held a day job called "Chancellor of Germany" - insisted that in order to join the European Union, Bulgaria must shut its Russian made reactors at, um, Belene.

At the time of the closure, electricity was a major Bulgarian export.

Two years ago, Russian dangerous natural gas supplies to Bulgaria - as a side show in Russia's neocolonial dispute with Ukraine - were shut off, with the end result that Bulgaria had a shortage of electricity and heat. Bulgarians were forced to do things like, um, burn their furniture in wood stoves during one of the coldest winters recorded.

Schroeder, who gave up his day job as "Chancellor of Germany" to work full time - at higher pay - for Gazprom had nothing to say on this subject, because his chief portfolio in his new job is to make Germany more dependent on Russian natural gas than before. The fact that he had helped to finance - at German Government expense - a new gas line to Germany that avoided Ukraine left him, indifferent to Bulgaria's plight.

Bulgaria has been seeking to finance new reactors at Belene ever since. A previous deal with the German utility RWE fell though.

Have a nice evening.