The regional ministry has reportedly granted an official construction permit to the National Electricity Company (NEC) to start building a 2GW nuclear plant in Belene on the Danube River , according to information of the Russian news agency Itar-Tass. NEC on its part has signed on Jul 10 a protocol allowing Russia ’s AtomStroyExport to build the plant. AtomStroyExport won the contract to build ground infrastructure, provide supply of equipment, installation and commissioning of the two power reactors of the Belene nuclear plant in partnership with France ’s Areva and Germany ’s Siemens in October 2006. It signed a final agreement with the state authorities valued at EUR 4bn in January this year. AtomStroyExport will not participate in the ownership structure of the plant. The state will retain 51% of the shareholders’ capital of the company set to run the project and is expected to select strategic equity partner between Germany ’s energy company RWE Power and Belgium ’s Electrabel by the end of the month. According to media rumours, RWE Power has better chances to win the competition. The first unit of the nuclear plant is expected to start operations in 2014 and the second one in 2015.