MOSCOW, December 11 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko will discuss with his Bulgarian colleagues the implementation of Russian-Bulgarian joint energy projects during his visit to Sophia on Friday, the ministry's press service said.

Russia and Bulgaria are jointly developing a range of energy projects, such as the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline project, the South Stream gas project and the building of a nuclear power plant in the Bulgarian northern town of Belene.

Russia, Bulgaria and Greece signed an agreement to build the 280-km Trans-Balkan pipeline to pump Russian and Caspian oil from the Bulgarian port of Burgas to the Greek port of Alexandroupolis in 2007.

The pipeline project is controlled by a consortium of Russian state-run companies.

In early December, the Russian energy minister said Bulgaria's concerns over the environmental impact of the oil pipeline construction may pose problems for the project. He said Bulgaria is also unhappy with the project's economic scheme, as Sofia wants to receive more than just dividends from the project.

Shmatko, however, said he is confident that there will be no problems in implementing another Black Sea oil gas pipeline project, in which Bulgaria is also involved.

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, Russia's energy giant 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 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.

The gas pipeline is expected to start operating in late 2015.

In early 2008, Russia's state nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly Atomstroyexport signed a contract worth around 4 billion euros ($5.8 billion) for the construction of the nuclear power plant in Bulgaria's Belene.

Smatko earlier said there are no problems expected over the project, despite the fact that the German RWE company, one of the leading European electricity producers, which held a 49% stake in the project, withdrew from the venture in late October.

Kiriyenko, head of the Russian state-run civilian nuclear power corporation Rosatom, earlier said Russia was ready to seek a stake in the project.

The implementation of the projects in supervised by the Russian-Bulgarian intergovernmental commission on trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation.