The licensing process for two new blocks at the Paks Nuclear Power Plant (C Hungary) could be completed in 2014-2015 and construction finished by 2020-2025, thus providing the facility with an additional 2,000MW of capacity, plant CEO Janos Suli told the business daily Napi Gazdasag in an interview published on Monday.

Mr Suli said that Hungarian companies would be retained to complete HUF 600bn-700bn of the HUF 2,000bn (EUR 7.33bn) project.

Four companies have so far expressed interest in preliminary negotiations to submit bids in a tender to double the capacity at Paks: Russia's Atomstroyexport, Toshiba unit Westinghouse Electric LLC, a joint venture between France's Areva and Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and a Franco-German joint venture, Econews reported earlier.

Mr Suli announced in January that the Paks Nuclear Power Plant had revenue of HUF 154.1bn (EUR 564.5m) in 2009, up 9.2pc yr/yr.

The facility generated 15,427 GW hours of electricity in 2009, a record in its 26 years history, up 4.1pc from 2008, plant Communications Director Istvan Mittler told MTI in January.

Paks is Hungary's only nuclear power plant. Starting in 2006, the plant raised the capacity of each of its four reactor blocks to a nominal 500 MW from the original 440 MW. The four VVER-440, Soviet-designed pressurised water blocks were commissioned from 1983 to 1987. As a result of the programme, the share of Paks in Hungary's production of electricity had grown to 42.97pc last year from 37.2pc in 2008.