TALKS ON BELENE NPP PRICE START OVER

Experts of Russian company Atomstroyexport  will visit Bulgaria coming week to effect further negotiations on the Belene NPP. President of the National Electric Company (NEK) Krasimir Parvanov, said  the key agenda will be the price of Belene NPP and the financing for the project. "At present we have the proposal for EUR 2 B financing from the Russian party, but there will be no progress on those matters if we don't first finalize the price issue," said Parvanov. Russians insist on basing the final price on their own indices, which make the costs run at 6.3 billio0n euro.  Bulgaria and Russia have been lately disputing the eventual price of Belene, which is going to be anywhere between EUR 6 B and 8 B, with Bulgaria arguing that the price proposed by Atomstroyexport is too much.
Meanwhile this year  the National Electric Company will notch a record-breaking power export rates since the establishment of NEK. It is expected that by end-2010 electricity generated in Bulgaria for sale abroad will amount to       7.500 GW /hour, which is a double growth set against 2009.