Sofia - Bulgaria has asked UN inspectors to review the safety of nuclear fuel at the Kozloduy power plant, the plant's chief said Thursday. The request follows allegations by a former employee that plant officials for several years bought used fuel rods, billed for new ones and pocketed the difference.
Plant director Ivan Genov on Thursday called the allegation "absurd" and insisted that the two reactors are safe. Russia delivers Kozloduy's nuclear fuel.
"Checks are stringent and thorough," Genov told reporters.
Genov said he has asked the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency to send experts to examine the fuel rods. It would be the first IAEA inspection at Kozloduy since Bulgaria joined the European Union last year.
In Vienna, IAEA officials had no immediate comment.
Kozloduy's two 1,000-megawatt reactors are Bulgaria's only source of nuclear power. Two other reactors at the site went off-line in 2007 just before the Balkan nation joined the EU and two Soviet-era reactors were shut down in 2002.
Bulgaria plans to build a second nuclear power plant at Belene by 2015.
