MOSCOW, July 13 (RIA Novosti) - Bulgaria has put two major energy projects with Russia on hold until the country's new prime minister-designate Boiko Borisov has carried out a review of outstanding projects, a business daily said on Monday.
The center-right GERB party won a landslide victory at parliamentary elections on July 5 and its leader Borisov is expected to head a new government soon, Vedomosti reported.
In a letter sent to Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov, the future leader said his party was receiving alarming signals over operations conducted by state-owned companies, which were not taking into account the financial and economic crisis and Bulgaria's national interests, Vedomosti reported.
The letter called on the minister to put on hold finalizing of new lease and loan agreements, and also temporarily freeze such projects as the construction of the Belene nuclear power plant and the South Stream gas pipeline project, the paper reported.
Russia signed an inter-governmental agreement on the South Stream gas project with the Socialist-led Bulgarian government in January 2008 and in May 2009 Gazprom and state-run Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH) agreed to set up a joint venture on a parity basis to build the Bulgarian section of the South Stream pipeline by mid-2010, the paper said.
The South Stream project, designed to annually pump 31 billion cubic meters of Central Asian and Russian gas to the Balkans and on to other European countries, involves Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Italy and Greece. The pipeline's capacity could be eventually increased to 63 billion cubic meters annually.
Russia's state nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly Atomstroyexport won a tender to build and deliver essential equipment for a nuclear power plant in Belene, Bulgaria, in 2005, the paper said.
In early 2008, Atomstroyexport signed a contract worth around 4 billion euros ($5.8 billion) for the NPP construction.
