German energy giant RWE is still interested in acquiring 49 per cent in the company that will build and operate Bulgaria's second nuclear power plant on the Danube, Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov said on May 14, after meeting Holger Bietz, the head of RWE Power's merger and acquisitions unit.
RWE, along with Electrabel of Belgium, were picked by the ministry as the finalists in the tender to pick a strategic investor, but reports in German media last month claimed the company was ready to withdraw from the race over safety concerns and doubts regarding the Russian technology that will be used at Belene.
"Our commitment to the Belene nuclear power plant has not changed. We have a team of 75 people going through all the documents so that we can continue and conclude the negotiations," Bietz said in a media statement released by the ministry.
Sources close to the deal, quoted earlier this year by Reuters, named RWE as the favourite to win the deal after it reportedly offered to immediately invest 400 million euro in the project. RWE and Electrabel could still link up to split the 49 per cent stake, Reuters said.
Bietz confirmed that RWE was "open to partnerships", but did not name any potential partners, Bulgarian daily Dnevnik reported. So far, Czech energy company CEZ confirmed that it has held preliminary talks on the issue, the daily said.
CEZ, Italy's Enel and Germany's E.ON were all shortlisted by Bulgaria's National Electricity Company (NEC) at an earlier stage, but did not make the final cut.
NEC will hold the remaining 51 per cent in Belene, which, Bulgarian authorities hope, would once again make the country a major electricity exporter in South-Eastern Europe, after it had to shut down Soviet-built reactors at its Kozloduy power plant before joining the European Union in January 2007.
Belene's twin 1000-MW reactors would be built by Russia's Atomstroiexport, controlled by gas company Gazprom, with France's Areva and Germany's Siemens as subcontractors. The construction costs have been set at four billion euro, but the total outlay on the project is expected to be closer to seven billion euro.
