Bulgaria's power grid operator NEC has launched talks for signing long-term deals with power traders for sale of electricity produced by the future nuclear power plant (NPP) in Belene.

NEC is in talks with Italy's Trafigura Electricity, Swiss Atel and German-Swiss Egel. Talks with potential buyers of the future nuke plant output are in progress despite the fact that NEC is yet to pick a company to build the Belene plant. NEC said that talks in general had been held with potential buyers of Belene NPP output but that no deals had been signed. A 15-year agreement for the purchase of 500 million MWh has been signed with Trafigura Electricity, according to Dnevnik daily. The purchase price per kWh will be fixed annually using a base price of 35 euro ($43.7) per MWh set in the tender papers for the Belene NPP project.

According to preliminary estimates, the 2,000-MW Belene NPP will cost between 2.6 bln euro ($3.253 bln) and 4.0 bln euro ($5.005 bln).