Russian Outfit Eyes Mothballed Belene Nuke Plant Equipment Russia's AtomStroyExport, bidding to construct Bulgaria's nuclear power plant (NPP) at Belene, on the Danube, said it is ready to buy the redundant equipment delivered to the site of the plant before the project was put on hold in the early 1990s, said company president Serguey Shmatko.

The two sides have agreed to set up a commission to review the issues related to the reuse of the mothballed equipment, said the Russian executive.

Shmatko did not say what - if any, would be the impact of the buyout on the cost at which the company is proposing to complete the Belene project. The Belene equipment will be used to finish the construction of another nuclear power plant.

The Bulgarian side recently said it was not happy with the financial package of the AtomStroyExport offer and that of competing Czech outfit Skoda Alliance, noting that the proposed cost target is very close to that for building a new NPP from scratch.

Responding to the request of the advisory commission for a revision of the cost and time estimates, the Russian company offered to finish the first of the two reactors in 4.6 years and to hand over the second in 5.6 years.

If the NPP is built from scratch, the first reactor could be completed in 7 years, said AtomStroyExport.

Skoda Alliance has cut from 10 to 6 years the hand-over timeframe for the first reactor and from 10 to 7.5 years the timeframe for the second reactor, saying there was no room for further cuts.

The Russian offer is tied to the delivery of fresh nuclear fuel for the lifespan of the Belene NPP, said Vitalii Antipov from Russian nuclear fuel manufacturer Tvel. The same company could featured as the fuel supplier in the Skoda proposal.

AtomStroyExport has announced that Carsib, a consortium of France's Areva Group and Siemens Power Generation Group, will be subcontracted to deliver the electrical systems and the industrial accident management systems.