The Deloitte/Central Europe Limited consortium, Germany's DresdnerKleinwort Wasserstein and BNP Paribas of France are competing for the advisory contract for the restart of the Belene nuclear power plant (NPP) project, Bulgaria's National Electricity Transmission Company (NETC) said on Monday. The bid receipt deadline expired on October 18. The offers will now be graded by an advisory committee but NETC did not commit to a specific timetable for the announcement of the outcome from the selection procedure. BNP Paribas was hired to consult the privatisation of Bulgaria's seven electricity distribution companies. The sell-offs will generate proceeds for some 700 mln euro. Paribas has been involved in the construction of a NPP in Finland. Deloitte was approved in June this year to advise the selection of an investor for the construction of the Cernavoda NPP in Romania. The Belene project was suspended in the early 1990s due to cost overruns and environmental concerns. By the time the building of the 1,000MW Soviet-designed plant was put on hold, some 40% of construction works worth $1.0 bln had already been finished, including the delivery of a Skoda reactor. The completion of the project could cost anywhere between 1.5 bln and 3 bln euro with delivery seen by 2010. The vendors competing for the nuclear project are Skoda of the Czech Republic, Citibank and Italy's UniCredito; a second tie-in comprising of France's Framatome and Russia's AtomStroyExport; Canada's AECL leads the third consortium.