Bulgaria invites Russia, China and S. Korea to invest in its nuclear project (updated)

CNNC International

19/12/2019 13:50

(Adds detail, quote)
    SOFIA, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Bulgaria will invite Russia's
Rosatom, China's CNNC  2302.HK  and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power
Co  015760.KS  to file binding offers to become strategic
investors in its 10 billion euro ($11.1 billion) Belene nuclear
power project by the end of April, its energy minister said.
    France's Framatome, a unit of EDF  EDF.PA , and General
Electric  GE.N , which had offered to provide equipment for the
project and arrange financing, will also be part of the process,
Energy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova said on Thursday.
    General Electric has offered a steam turbine, while
Framatome is seeking to provide monitoring and controls systems
for the 2,000 megawatt plant on the Danube River. 
    "The process is very open," Petkova told reporters. "Every
one of the shortlisted companies can enter into talks with the
others."
    Sofia revived the Belene project last year after parliament
decreed it should seek to make use of two nuclear reactors it
bought for over 620 million euros from Rosatom in compensation
for scrapping the original project in 2012.
    The Balkan country has said the project will only move ahead
if it manages to secure strategic investors. 
    Petkova said Bulgaria will sign confidential agreements with
the companies next month. In August seven companies filed
initial offers to become strategic investors in the project.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL5N25G1XE
    Sofia plans to keep a blocking stake in the venture and will
 contribute with the site, the nuclear reactors and the acquired
licences. 
    But it will not extend state or corporate guarantees or
offer to buy electricity from the plant under long-term
contracts with preferential rates.     
    
    ($1 = 0.8990 euros)

 (Reporting by Tsvetelia Tsolova; Editing by Jason Neely and Jan
Harvey)
 ((tsvetelia.tsolova@thomsonreuters.com; +359-2-93-99-731;))