Ukraine hopes to sign a deal in June to buy two nuclear reactors from Bulgaria in an attempt to compensate for the "loss" of the six-reactor Zaporizhzhya NPP temporarily occupied by Russia, Reuters reports, citing Petro Kotin, president of the national nuclear power generating company Energoatom.
The new reactors will be built at the Khmelnytsky NPP in western Ukraine and will be equipped with Russian-made equipment that Kyiv wants to import from Bulgaria, Kotin said in an interview.
Russia gained control of ZNPP, Europe's largest nuclear power plant, after it began its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Six of Zaporizhzhya's nuclear reactors are currently idle.
"Negotiations between the government of Ukraine and Bulgaria continue... and I think that somewhere in June we will have the result of concluding contracts with Bulgaria for the purchase of this equipment," Kotin said.
"I set the task before our construction organisation and the Khmelnytskyy station to have it ready to be installed by June," he said, referring to the first of the two reactors, which will be ready for installation immediately.
According to him, if it is delivered on time and in full, Energoatom will be ready to start start-up work on the new reactor in two to three years, which is also the time required to manufacture the turbine for the unit. According to him, Energoatom is in preliminary talks with General Electric (GE.N).
The second reactor will be installed later, and Kotin did not give a timeframe.
He said that Bulgaria had previously evaluated the two reactors at $600 million, but Sofia is seeking to increase the price of the equipment, which, apart from Bulgaria, can only be bought in Russia.
"There is a constant desire on the Bulgarian side to achieve greater benefits for themselves than this $600 million and the more time passes, the higher prices they voice, but we are still focused on the price of $600 million," Kotin said.