Bulgaria strikes back at Russia with NPP counterclaim.

SOFIA, October 7 (Itar-Tass) -- Bulgaria's state-run power grid
operator NEK has filed a 61-million dollar lawsuit in the international
arbitration court in Paris against Russia's state nuclear company
Atomstroyexport over delayed payments on the planned Belene nuclear plant,
the energy minister said on Thursday.
Minister Traicho Traikov made the announcement just days after NEK and
Atomstoyexport extended the agreement over Belene nuclear project up to
March 31, 2012.
At the end of July Atomstroyexport took NEK to the arbitration court
in Paris for EUR 58 million over delayed payments for the work on two
nuclear reactors. The Bulgarian company later said it would strike back
with a counterclaim over delayed payments for the buyback of old equipment
from the plant.
Bulgaria and Russia are unable to agree on the price for the
construction of the 2000-MW Belene NPP. On September 30 NEK and
Atomstoyexport signed a new annex that extended their contract by six
months in order to study the feasibility analysis provided by NEK's
consultant - HSBC.
It will also allow the parties to take into account the results from
the stress tests following the Fukushima NPP accident in Japan.