SOFIA, March 28 (Reuters) - Bulgaria has abandoned plans to build the 2,000 megawatt Belene nuclear power plant on the Danube River and will construct a new gas power plant instead, Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said on Wednesday.
The Belene project has failed to attract serious foreign investors in the past three years after Germany's RWE pulled out in 2009 due to funding concerns.
The management of Bulgaria's NPP Kozloduy has required a certificate of quality of the metal, of which the two high pressure heaters recently installed at power units five and six are made. This has become clear from a statement of NPP Kozloduy CEO Alexander Nikolov. The two heaters cost 29 million euros.
The nuclear plant's management has sent letters to the manufacturer, OAO ZiO-Podolsk, and the supplier, Atomtoploproekt, in which they insist on being provided with extra information regarding the control on the parts' manufacturing.
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Overexposure of workers at irradiation facility - follow up |
History
The gamma-irradiation facility (GIF), located in the town of Stamboliyski, was put into operation in 1980, charged with 49 sealed Co-60 sources with a total activity of 426 TBq. The GIF was owned by the Agricultural Academy and had been used for the irradiation of food and agricultural products, as well as for scientific experiments.
From 1997 till 2005 the GIF has not been used for its intended purpose and the sources were temporarily stored in the facility. In 2005, the sources were transferred for long-term storage to the Novi Han RAW Repository.
Russia's state nuclear company Atomstroyexport – which is technically supposed to build Bulgaria's Belene NPP – is facing severe shortages, according to a freshly leaked diplomatic cable of the US ambassador in Moscow.
The cable by John Beyrle, US Ambassador to Russia who was the US Ambassador to Bulgaria before going to Moscow, dated April 3, 2009, was released Thursday by WikiLeaks and their Bulgarian partner Bivol.bg.
Bulgarians "risk being cold" this winter if the government did not move forward with the Russian energy projects. This is what Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin said, off-the-record, to his Bulgarian counterpart, Boyko Borisov, during the summit in Gdansk in September, 2009. The tone of the sentence in question is not clear, we cannot judge if it was threatening enough, but obviously it seriously impressed Borisov in order for him to report it in a timely manner and for Putin’s words to find their place in the classified documents of the American diplomacy.
Russian nuclear power engineering company Atomstroyexport has advised its owner, state power corporation Rosatom, to drop Bulgaria's Belene nuclear power project, French daily La Tribune reported, citing a letter that Atomstroyexport sent to its parent.
Rosatom told Dnevnik it would not comment on the letter as it was an internal document and the company was yet to decide whether to exit the project. The proposed withdrawal would be considered a possibility only if Rosatom failed to sign its 12th consecutive agreement with Bulgaria, the company said.
While RWE insisted that its withdrawal from the project, which has yet to get off the ground, was due entirely to financial concerns, the February 2009 secret US embassy cable indicates that safety concerns and shady business practices by other partners were a factor in the German firm's decision to leave in October 2009.
Austrian companies have shown interest in taking part in the project to build a second Bulgarian Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in the Danube town of Belene.
The information was reported Tuesday by Dr. Michael Angerer, Commercial Counsellor with Austrian Embassy in Bulgaria, during a conference dedicated to the competitiveness of Bulgaria's economy.
Serbia has officially stated its interest in becoming one of the investors in Bulgaria's project to build a second Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in the Danube town of Belene.
The official letter was sent to Bulgaria's Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, from his Serbian counterpart, Mirko Cvetcovic.
Bulgarian Parliament Chair Tsacheva has made promising hints about the fate of the Belene nuclear power plant. Photo by BGNES
Bulgarian will for sure build its second nuclear power plant at Belene, Parliament Chair Tsetska Tsacheva has declared.
