GORNA ARDA
The Gorna Arda hydro-power complex will likely be built under a concession arrangement that will be contested by all interested outfits on an equal footing with Bulgaria’s power grid operator National Electric Company (NEC), Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov said on August 26, as quoted by dnevnik.bg. The project could be back on the agenda in autumn 2008, when the Cabinet expects to settle the outstanding claims of its Turkish partner in the undertaking. In 2007, CCG Insaat Sanayi Yatirim Ve Turiz, legal successor to Celyan, the original Turkish participant in the project, filed a 75 million euro claim against NEC at the international court of arbitration in Paris.

GIVE ME GAS
Bulgaria’s state-owned gas company Bulgargaz had not restored gas supplies to Kremikovtzi to the amount that the steel mill required to operate at full capacity, the mill’s spokesperson Maria Todorova told The Sofia Echo on August 26. Bulgargaz had been expected to do so by the end of the day on August 25, but negotiations between the two companies were still underway. The amount of gas that would eventually be supplied was also a subject of the talks.

TRY IT, YOU’LL LIKE IT
Bulgarian wine exports posted a sharp decline in the first three months in 2008, a figure that would be hard to make up in the remainder of the year, Dnevnik quoted industry representatives as saying. Local wine makers shipped about 20 million litres of wine in January-March, versus 25 million litres a year ago. Wine exports in Q1 were 13 million euro below the year-ago mark of 32.9 million euro.

SAIL ON BY
Spanish company Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC), which will build Danube Bridge 2 at Vidin-Calafat, requested an extension to the project deadline and an increase in the implementation costs. FCC said the reason for its demands were additional geological studies it had to make, changes to the project and delays in the expropriation of private land needed for the project.

LONGER
The Cabinet extended the Djourkovo lead and zinc mining concession that had been granted to local company Lucky Invest for a further 10 years. The concession expired on June 30. The company had to submit a working project for the remainder of the concession to the Economy Ministry before an annex to the existing concession deal was signed.