Bulgaria continues negotiations on sale of nuclear reactors to Ukraine

Bulgaria's parliament has decided to extend by six months the deadline for the government to complete negotiations on the sale of two Russian nuclear reactors and related equipment to Ukraine.

This was reported by RBC-Ukraine with reference to Euractiv.

The Bulgarian authorities received these reactors from Russia's Atomstroyexport more than six years ago, but they proved to be unusable after the country refused to build the Belene nuclear power plant.

The reactors are currently stored near Belene, awaiting sale. Negotiations with Ukraine, which have been going on for almost two years, will only be completed if the Bulgarian government reaches an agreement on a price of at least €600 million, which is equal to the amount paid by the Bulgarian National Electricity Company to Russia's Atomstroyexport.

The visit of experts from the Ukrainian nuclear power plant operator Energoatom to Bulgaria was organised to inspect the equipment of the Belene NPP. However, the martial law in Ukraine affected the negotiation process.

The European Commission had previously acknowledged that a potential deal to sell the reactors could be financed from EU funds allocated to help Ukraine.

The Bulgarian-Ukrainian deal is unique in that only Bulgaria has two Russian reactors that it does not need, while Ukraine is the only country that can benefit from them.

This year, Ukraine plans to start construction of four new nuclear units at the Khmelnytsky NPP. Two of them will be built using Russian equipment, which Ukraine plans to import from Bulgaria, and the other two will use American technology from Westinghouse.

In turn, Bulgaria decided last year to continue developing the existing Kozloduy NPP using Westinghouse nuclear reactors.

Author - Dmitriy Levchenko, 12/09/2024