site.btaUS, Bulgarian, Ukrainian Experts Conclude Joint Technical Assessment of Belene Nuclear Power Plant

United States experts completed a visit for joint technical assessment of nuclear power plant equipment at Belene, Bulgaria, the US Embassy in Sofia reported on Friday.

At the request of the governments of Bulgaria and Ukraine, a US technical team arrived in Sofia on May 10 for meetings with Bulgarian government officials in preparation for the inspection of the nuclear equipment at Belene, on the Danube River, the Embassy said. US, Bulgarian and Ukrainian experts conducted a site visit from May 13-16, for a technical assessment of selected VVER/V466 nuclear power plant equipment items that have been stored for several years at Belene. The objective of the inspection was to provide a third-party assessment on the condition and conservation measures used to maintain the equipment.

The US government team included technical experts from the Department of State, the Department of Energy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory, who worked alongside representatives from Bulgaria's government and the country's National Electric Company (NEK), and a technical delegation from Ukraine's Energoatom National Nuclear Energy Generating Company, the US Embassy in Bulgaria said.

As BTA reported earlier, the need to speed up the process of supplying equipment from Belene to Ukraine was discussed between Bulgarian Energy Minister Vladimir Malinov and his Ukrainian counterpart German Galushchenko in a video conference on May 7. Malinov briefed Galushchenko on preliminary talks he had conducted with the National Assembly in Sofia, which made him optimistic that the deal would be finalized in the coming months. "We are completely aware of the importance of the process, and we will make every effort to make it as quick as possible," Malinov vowed back then.