Bulgaria will seek talks with Russian gas major Gazprom on adding an extra 500 million cubic metres to the 3 billion cu m it gets a year because of growing consumption, energy minister Petar Dimitrov said on the sidelines of a session of the Bulgaria-Russian economic commission.

Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH), a newly-created structure bundling Bulgaria’s key power generation assets, may join hands with its Russian peer on oil and gas exploration projects.

The minister said there will not be legislative bars before a future cooperation although Russia keeps foreign companies out of its mineral, oil and gas fields.

Russian deputy prime minister Sergei Sobyanin quashed recent reports by Russian newspaper Vedomosti of an extended deadline for the completion of the South Stream gas pipeline.

BEH and Gazprom should put pen to paper by the end of the year and set up a joint company by next spring.

Russia also reiterated its commitment to give a state-guaranteed loan for the construction of Bulgaria’s Belene nuke plant in the eponymous town but Dimitrov declined it as a last-ditch solution. The project should be financially packaged by the end of next year.

Russia’s repeated proposal comes at the backdrop of a fierce financial crisis that has dried up funding.

Russia broached the issue of advance payment of the equipment Bulgaria is to order by the year’s end. German company RWE, which was freshly picked to be the nuke’s strategic investor, has said it was ready to bankroll the purchase.