A consortium of EVN of Austria and the civil engineering contractor Alpine Bau are discussing the possibility to buy out Turkey's CCG from the long-delayed 170 MW Gorna Arda hydropower cascade project in southeast Bulgaria. Stefan Szysz-kowitz, Chief Executive of EVN Bulgaria, has announced that "talks related to the project are in progress. We are interested in implementing the project with partners."Earlier, a senior Bulgarian government official said that CCG had agreed to sell its 30.1 per cent stake in the project after failing to start construction of the project, which isrnon the Gorna Arda river near the Turkish border.rnThe Gorna Arda project, which envisages construction of a three-plant cascade, at an originally estimated cost of US$ 300 million, as well as the rehabilitation of three existing hydro stations, was originally to have been built by a joint venture of Bulgaria's State power company NEK (69.9 per cent) and Turkey's Ceylan Holding (30.1 per cent) under an inter-governmental electricity-for-infrastructure agreement signed in 1998. However, Ceyhan subsequently ran into financial difficulties with the conglomer-ate's Bank Kapital put under administration in 2000, and the project was postponed. Since then Bulgaria has sought to secure Ceylan's withdrawal and replace it with other interested strategic investors, but without success. In 2007, CCG, Ceylan's legal successor, initiated legal action against NEK at the International Chamber of Commerce's Arbitration Court in Paris, seeking €75 million (US$ 99 million) in damages. Last year, Sofia said CCG had agreed to drop its claim and that if a settlement could be reached with Turkey, it would hold an open tender for a new investor.
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