Bulgaria's minister of environment and water Djevdet Chakarov has signed a EUR 11.272 million contract for construction of a water treatment plant in the city of Montana. The project will be carried out by a German-Austrian consortium that includes Strabag's subsidiary Zublin. The company was one of the candidates for the construction of the second bridge across the Danube but it was outbid by Spain's FCC. The project in Montana is carried out under the ISPA programme. As much as 75% of the financing is provided by European financial institutions, the remainder is national co-financing. The plant is expected to be completed in May 2010.
Source: Pari (18.06.2007)

Nine local water supply companies are stuck with higher electricity tariffs as a result from an ongoing dispute with a regional power distributor owned by Germany's E.ON. The water utilities in Silistra, Razgrad, Varna, Veliko Tarnovo, Dobrich, Ruse, Gabrovo, Isperih and Targovishte have to enforce higher customer service tariffs to deflect their electricity costs which account for up to 40 per cent of their operating costs. The said utilities, which pump water from a significant depth, have asked the power regulator to approve a price increase in the aftermath of the new electricity tariffs that took effect in early July. The utilities operate their own transformers and power grids but are billed by the regional power distributor under the low-voltage tariff instead of the mid-voltage tariff. The State Energy and Water Regulatory Commission has weighed in, giving instructions that the metering point should be located at the dividing line between the networks of the end-consumer and the distributor. The commission estimates that the enforcement of the low-voltage tariff adds BGN 2.2 mln to the combined annual electricity bill of the nine utilities in question. The managements of the water utilities declined to comment, saying their negotiations with E.ON are still in progress. E.ON Bulgaria Networks said it has granted the wish of all customers that have requested a change in the metering method.
Source: Dnevnik (26.07.2007)