SPANISH AWARD
King Juan Carlos of Spain bestowed a prize for High Achievements to the founder and executive director of Bulgarian petroleum company Overgas, Sasho Donchev. It became the first local firm to win the prestigious award of the World Petroleum Council in the Social Responsibility category for small and medium enterprises. To date, the company has invested more than 14 million leva in its projects. The award is given once every three years in the categories Social Responsibility and Technical Development. The other two finalists were Australian company ENI and Nigerian company Pro-Natura International, insurance.bg reported on July 1.

EIGHTFOLD INCREASE
Alfa Finance Holding, based in Bulgaria, specialising in financial services, real estate management, mining and logistics, earned a net consolidated profit of 83 million leva for 2007, marking a record eightfold increase in comparison to 2006. The company’s net consolidated revenues amounted to 212 million leva in 2007, while the firm’s assets jumped 2.8 times reaching 653 million leva, Bulgarian-language daily Dnevnik reported.

RE-CALCULATION
After the new electricity prices came into force on July 1, all three power distributors in the country, CEZ Bulgaria, E.ON Bulgaria and EVN Bulgaria, started special checks of electricity meters. The checks will continue until July 9. Clients will pay the old electricity price until the calculation has been completed, CEZ Bulgaria said. The average price increase of tariffs for household consumers is 14 per cent.

CLOSER TO THE MINE
The state of Bulgaria and the Canadian metals extraction company Dundee Precious Metals will soon form a joint venture in a 25-75 per cent share-out and use it to operate the Chelopech gold mine, the Government said in a statement. The two parties are expected to sign a memorandum to this  effect in a month’s time. The start of gold extraction activities at Chelopech foresees investments into an installation worth $155-160 million, all to be procured by the Canadian company.

REFINERY UPGRADES
LUKoil Bulgaria would invest hundreds of millions of US dollars in a new capacity at its Bourgas refinery, LUKoil said on June 26. During a recent visit to Bulgaria, LUKoil president Vagit Alekperov said investments in the refinery would reach $1 billion through 2013. Currently, LUKoil Neftochim processes 7.5 million tons of crude oil a year. The production capacity of the refinery is nine million tons of crude oil.