KOZLODUY'S USD 5BN BLOCK VII LEFT TO THE NEXT GOVERNMENT

The future of NPP Kozloduy's BlockVII will be decided by the next government of Bulgatia, it became clear from the words of Deputy Prime Minister Daniela Bobeva yesterday after a meeting of the Council of Ministers.

She added that the new government will have to reaffirm what has been done by the Oresharski government on the project both in terms of the agreement with Westinghouse and on the financial details.

From the words of Bobeva it also became clear that so far  six rounds of talks have been conducted with the U.S. company, and preliminary data indicate that the new block in the NPP Kozloduy will cost about USD 5 billion. But she explicitly warned that the figure is provisional and is taken from the report that the Council of Ministers had discussed at its meeting.

The engineering, design and construction contracts could be signed as early as the end of the year after Bulgaria has a new government.

According to the information available to Daniela Bobeva, the management of the Bulgarian Energy Holding did not sign documents or loan agreements with Gazprom on South Stream. There were rumors on Tuesday night that the Board of Directors of the state holding approved borrowing EUR 620 million from the Russian company. This however was later denied by BEH and Bobeva.