Bulgaria's second planned nuclear station at Belene on the Danube River could be a viable economic project, but Bulgaria did not need it to prevent electricity shortages and black-outs, Economy Minister Traicho Traikov said on September 15.

"Industry of any kind, including a new power plant, is a good thing in itself, because those are new jobs, taxes and increased gross domestic product. It all comes down to financing and here we have a pretty high risk, namely whether we will get our money back. That is why we must calculate how much money we want to pay as a country and how much risk to leave to private investors," Traikov told private broadcaster Nova Televiziya's morning show.

Bulgaria signed in January 2008 the contract with Russia's Atomstroyexport to build the two 1000MW reactors for a fixed cost of four billion euro. The final cost is estimated to be more than nine billion euro, however, according to figures from a report by the project's financial consultants, quoted by Traikov.

In addition to the agreed base cost, inflation adjustments are expected to reach about two billion euro. Another two billion euro would be needed as financing costs and a further 1.3 billion euro for the necessary infrastructure and architectural and engineering fees, Traikov said.

"If the question is whether we need a second nuclear station for domestic consumption, the answer is no, we do not need it. If all declared [energy] projects are built, we will have an enormous excess capacity," Traikov said.

"We will not need electricity rationing if we do not build Belene," he said.

The nuclear plant could be a profitable project, although that was far from a certainty, which would spur economic development in northwestern Bulgaria, Traikov said. "That is a purely economic project, which we can then compare to others of its kind. If we have five billion, is it better to build a power station, highways or a factory," he said.

Asked whether the Cabinet planned to invest in the project, Traikov re-iterated the position that the current ruling party GERB adopted during the run-in to the July elections, namely that Belene should only be built by private investors, without taxpayers' money.

That stance is opposed by Bulgarian President Georgi Purvanov, who sealed several big joint energy projects with Russia in 2008, and the Socialist party, ousted from government at the elections, who want heavy public investment in the project.