Bulgarian government here on Wednesday announced it was seeking a strategic investor for the construction of its unfinished 2,000-megawatt Belene nuclear power plant (NPP).
According to the decision, which has to be approved by the country's parliament, the strategic investor would build the NPP "on a market-based basis and without providing a state guarantee," the Government Information Service said in a statement.
This option would allow the Bulgarian state to cover the costs incurred over the years as well as to ensure the country's energy security in the long term, the statement said.
The Belene NPP was approved in 2005. Russian company Atomstroyexport, an engineering branch of the state-owned Rosatom, won the bid to build this NPP in 2006, but the project was frozen in 2009 and suspended in 2013.
However, Bulgaria so far has paid almost 1.5 billion U.S. dollars for the construction of the Belene NPP site and the manufacturing of its two reactors.
The Balkan country has only one operational NPP. The 2,000-megawatt plant is located at Kozloduy on the Danube River and produces one-third of the national electricity.
Editor:Amber
