BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

21/01/2009

Russian firm to build Belarus nuclear plant

MINSK, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Russian company Atomstroiexport has been selected to build the first nuclear power station in Belarus, a senior Belarus government official said on Wednesday.

The ex-Soviet state had earlier been considering bids by France's Areva and Westinghouse-Toshiba to build the plant at a site near its western border with Lithuania.

But Atomstroiexport had been the only bidder prepared to proceed and provide financing and Belarus officials had made it plain that the Russian firm was favoured to win the tender.

"The country's leaders are ready to carry out the project to build a nuclear power station with Atomstroiexport as the general contractor," Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Semashko told reporters after talks with Russian nuclear officials.

Belarus's energy ministry said the two sides had agreed after their talks to complete preparations for construction in the first quarter of 2009 and sign an inter-government agreement on peaceful use of nuclear power.

Belarus plans to complete construction of a first 1,000-megawatt reactor in 2016 and a second one two years later.

Belarus was the country worst affected by the 1986 fire and explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant over the border in Ukraine, with one-third of territory contaminated. But there is very little opposition to nuclear power in the country of 10 million on Russia's western border.

Belarussian leaders, particularly President Alexander Lukashenko, have called for construction of a nuclear plant to diversify sources of energy after quarrelling with Russia over energy prices in 2007.

(Reporting by Andrei Makhovsky, writing by Ron Popeski, editing by Anthony Barker)

Source:

http://www.fxstreet.com/news/forex-news/article.aspx?StoryId=ad7a66ba-17a2-41cc-b5e0-dc9c7febff6a

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