Bulgaria, deprived of Russian gas, concluded on Friday an unprecedented delivery agreement with the French Framatome in order to also do without Russian nuclear fuel following the invasion ofUkraine launched by Moscow.
“We are thus achieving a complete diversification of nuclear fuel deliveries,” said interim energy minister Rossen Hristov during the signing ceremony in the presence of a senior group official.
The director of the Kozlodoui power station, Georgy Kirkov, hailed for his part “a culmination”.
The country’s only nuclear site, of Soviet design, provides more than a third of the electricity consumed in Bulgaria and has until now operated using Russian fuel.
According to the ten-year agreement, the reactor the most recent of the two units at 1,000 MW each should be able to operate from 2025 thanks to Framatome.
The oldest reactor, which dates from 1987, is to receive fuel from the American company Westinghouse Electric, according to a similar agreement signed on December 22. But the implementation looks more delicate than in the case of Framatome which has a fuel identical to that currently used in Kozlodoui.
Bulgaria, which before the war in Ukraine was almost entirely dependent on Moscow for energy, has accelerated its resource diversification strategy in recent months.
Along with Poland, it was one of the first countries to see its supply of Russian gas cut off in April. It now receives gas from Azerbaijan and is seeking to obtain liquid gas supplies via Turkey and Greece.
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