The National Electricity Company (NEC) has shortlisted 6 of the 10 candidates that have submitted expressions of interest in acquiring an equity stake of up to 49% in Nuclear Plant Belene, which will install and operate two power generators with total production capacity of 2,000MW, the company informed. CEZ (Czech Rep); EdF (France); Electrabel (Belgium); Enel (Italy); E.ON (Germany); and RWE (Germany) are invited to sign confidentiality agreement in order to do due diligence of the project and to submit initial offers until October 1. The other four companies, which are also interested in the project but have submitted expressions of interest in acquiring an equity stake of up to 25% in the plant, ATEL (Switzerland); Cumerio Med (Bulgarian-based copper miner owned by Belgium’s Cumerio Group); EGL (Switzerland) and Endesa (Spain) may receive invitation to join the project at a later step if necessary. As recalled, Russia’s AtomStroyExport in partnership with France's Areva and Germany's Siemens has signed a preliminary contract valued at some EUR 4bn for building ground infrastructure, supply, installation and commissioning of the two power reactors. The final assignment is expected to be signed by the end of this year so that the first nuclear unit could start operations in early 2014. Meanwhile undisclosed source of Dnevnik Daily informed that 10 banks, 2 of which operational in Bulgaria, will participate in the five-year EUR 250mn bridge loan syndicated by France’s BNP Paribas, which will finance the first phase of the project. Earlier this month, NEC opened a tender for a lead structuring and arranging bank in the project.