Bulgaria must secure $5 billion to start building a nuclear power plant with two 1,000-megawatt reactors at Belene on the Danube River, an engineer said. Djurica Tankosic, an architect-engineer for WorleyParsons Ltd., which works on the Belene plant project, urged the Bulgarian government to find funds as soon as possible to avoid delays in construction, scheduled to begin this year, the Bulgarian Sofia news agency SNA said Wednesday. Tankosic singled out two sources the Bulgarian government could look at to obtain funding, a loan from Russia or an agreement with France's BNP Paribas Bank. Sofia had requested a loan from Moscow for the Belene facility as part of a pending deal on the South Stream natural gas pipeline.

Text of report in English by Bulgarian national news agency BTA Sofia, 3 October: Germany's RWE Power has been selected to acquire a 49 per cent stake in the Belene Energy Company as a strategic investor in the project to build and operate Bulgaria's second nuclear power plant, Bulgarian Economy and Energy Minister Peter [Petur] Dimitrov told a news conference here on Friday [3 October].

Text of report in English by Bulgarian national news agency BTA Sofia, 3 October: The government continued the practical implementation of the agreements which Bulgaria has on a bilateral basis with Russia - above all, in the field of energy and the building of a new nuclear power plant at Belene, Prime Minister Sergei [Sergey] Stanishev said during Question Time in Parliament on Friday [3 October].

Text of report by Macedonian newspaper Nova Makedonija on 10 September [Report by Aleksandar S. Dimkovski: "Macedonia Has Five More Days To Catch Last Train for Belene"] Macedonia has five more days to decide how it will deal with the energy crisis that is threatening the region.

Text of report in English by Bulgarian national news agency BTA website, Sofia, September 9 (BTA) - Bulgarian and international nongovernmental organizations have sent a letter to the European Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes demanding investigation of the bidding procedures for the construction of Belene N-Plant, Jan Haverkamp, Greenpeace EU Unit expert on nuclear energy told journalists Tuesday [ 9 September].