Bulgaria, deprived of Russian gas, concluded an unprecedented delivery agreement with France’s Framatome on Friday to also dispense with Russian nuclear fuel after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Therefore, we are achieving a complete diversification of nuclear fuel deliveries,” Acting Energy Minister Rossen Hristov said during the signing ceremony in the presence of a senior group official.
The director of the Kozlodoui power station, Georgi Kirkov, hailed his side as “a culmination”. The country’s only nuclear site, of Soviet design, provides more than a third of the electricity consumed in Bulgaria and has so far operated on Russian fuel.
A ten year deal
Under the agreement, which covers a period of ten years, the most recent reactor of the two units of 1,000 MW each should be able to operate from 2025 thanks to Framatome.
The older reactor, dating from 1987, will receive fuel from US company Westinghouse Electric, under a similar agreement signed on December 22. But the implementation seems more delicate than in the case of Framatome which has identical fuel to the one currently used in Kozlodoui.
Bulgaria, which before the war in Ukraine was almost entirely dependent on Moscow for energy, has stepped up its resource diversification strategy in recent months.
Along with Poland, it was one of the first countries to see its Russian gas supply cut off in April. It now receives gas from Azerbaijan and is seeking liquefied gas supplies via Turkey and Greece.
Source: BFM TV
