French company ONET Technologies signed Monday in Sofia a contract to begin decommissioning four shut nuclear reactors at Bulgaria's Kozloduy plant, company officials said.
Safety concerns by Brussels prompted Bulgaria to shut the four 440-megawatt reactors ahead of joining the European Union in 2007, leaving only two 1,000-megawatt units still operating at the nuclear plant.
Under the contract, ONET agreed to compress nuclear waste left in the four reactors to 10 percent of its initial volume and then remove it, which according to company director Guy Veidig is "the first concrete step towards dismantling" the reactors.
"This will be the beginning of the irreversible process of decommissioning the four reactors," Kozloduy deputy chief Valentin Ribarski added.
Bulgaria has already called a tender for the actual dismantling of the blocs, to begin shortly after the waste has been removed.
ONET hailed the contract in a statement as "one of the most important dismantling contracts in Eastern Europe funded by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)."
Bulgaria received 550 million euros (757 million dollars) from the EBRD to ensure the decommissioning of the four reactors.
In order to make up for the lost capacity, Bulgaria has launched construction on a second nuclear plant at Belene, west of Kozloduy on the Danube.
It has already picked Russian company Atomstroyexport to build Belene's two 1,000-megawatt reactors, which are planned to come online in late 2013 and mid-2014.
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