BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

01/12/2006

Belarus to build nuclear power plant

MINSK, Belarus

Belarus plans to build a nuclear power plant to reduce its dependence on energy imports, President Alexander Lukashenko said Friday.

Lukashenko said the nuclear plant would come on line in 2015.

"The development of our own nuclear energy as a way to ensure Belarus' national security has no alternative," he said during a government session.

The new plant would be built in the Mogilev region in southeastern Belarus, one of the areas badly affected by radioactive fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Lukashenko sought to assuage public fears of nuclear energy, saying that Belarus was surrounded by nuclear plants in neighboring Russia and Ukraine anyway.

He didn't say who would build the plant.

Russia, which has a union agreement with Belarus, has propped up its Soviet-style economy by supplying cheap energy resources, but the bilateral ties have worsened recently amid a spiraling dispute over gas prices.

Russia's Gazprom state natural gas monopoly has warned it would hike the price Belarus pays for gas fourfold to $200 per 1,000 cubic meters. At the same time, it also signaled it would ease the impact of the increase on Belarus in exchange for a controlling stake in the Belarusian gas pipeline system.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week the two nations were close to a deal that would get Gazprom a 50 percent share in a joint venture with Beltransgaz, the Belarusian company that runs the pipes taking Russian gas across Belarus. The value of the Russian stake will be figured into the price Belarus pays for Russian gas, he said.

Source:

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8LOANVG5.htm