While other bidders have not been completely discarded, Finland will give priority to negotiations with the two companies who have tabled a joint offer for the installation, power company TVO said.

"We have decided to continue negotiations primarily on the plant alternative based on a pressurized water reactor offered by the consortium Framatome-Siemens," Mauno Paavola, chief executive of TVO, said.

Framatome ANP is a 66 percent-held unit of French power group Areva, with Siemens owning the remaining 34 percent.

The two other bidders for the contract are Russia's Atomstroi Export and US-based Westinghouse.

Framatome ANP - Siemens AG has offered the Finnish consortium a pressurized water reactor with electric output of about 1600 MW, TVO said.

No price was disclosed, and the Finnish group added that it hoped to finalize negotiations by the end of the year.

Some estimates say that the fifth nuclear reactor would cost around 1.6 billion euros (1.85 billion dollars).

The new plant is to be located at Olkiluoto on Finland's west coast, some 230 kilometers (140 miles) west of Helsinki, where TVO has two nuclear reactors with a combined output of 1,700 MW already.

Finnish parliament last year approved plans for the construction of a fifth nuclear reactor, supplementing four existing power stations which were built in the 1970s.

The project has sparked criticism from environmental groups, and the decision to go ahead with it caused the departure of the Green Party from the then five-party left-right coalition.

Currently some 28 percent of the Nordic country's power supply comes from nuclear power, and this percentage would rise to an estimated 35 percent with the new reactor.

Finnish industry leaders have argued that the country -- flat and devoid of any natural resources apart from vast forests -- will face power shortages if no new power plants are built, and some are already talking about a need for a sixth nuclear reactor.

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