"The reactor was switched back on and reconnected to the grid Friday," ministry spokeswoman Dimitrina Hristeva told AFP.

Economy and Energy Minister Traicho Traikov was present at the start of the reactor turbine and "there was no problem whatsoever with the switch-on," Hristeva added.

The bloc was initially shut for planned maintenance and refuelling on September 18 and was due to go back online in October.

But the plant said on October 19 that it had found "mechanic defects (cracks) in the upper part of the protective tubes of three control rods" in the reactor's primary radioactive circuit.

No leakage was detected but subsequent checks found the same defects in 31 -- or half -- of the reactor's metal control rods, forcing their urgent replacement.

Mityu Hristozov, head of the dispatching centre at Bulgaria's Electricity System Operator, told AFP Friday that the quick repairwork had enabled Bulgaria to avoid a feared cut in electricity exports to neighbouring Greece, Macedonia and Serbia.

Meanwhile, the BTA state news agency reported that Traikov sacked Kozloduy chief executive Dimitar Angelov on Friday, appointing chief financial officer Kostadin Dimitrov in his place.

Hristeva insisted however this had nothing to do with the reactor's problems.

Two 1,000-megawatt reactors are currently operational at Kozloduy, after four smaller blocs had to be shut down ahead of Bulgaria's entry into the European Union in 2007.

To compensate for the lost capacity, Bulgaria planned a second nuclear plant at Belene on the Danube, but the Russia-built project remains bogged down in financial uncertainty after the withdrawal of Germany's RWE from it last year.

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