"Everything is ready for the process. We shall start it at about 2:00 p.m. (1200 GMT) and according to our estimates the unit will stop at about 9.00 p.m. (1900 GMT)," Viktor Shevaldin, the plant's general manager told AFP.

Under the agreement which secured the former Soviet republic its membership earlier this year of the EU bloc, Lithuania closes the first unit on Friday and is scheduled to close the remaining unit in 2009.

The EU has been worried about safety at the Ignalina plant, as it operates the same kind of reactors as in Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear plant, which exploded in 1986 in the world's worst civil nuclear disaster.

The EU has promised to finance the closure of the plant, estimated at 2-3 billion euros (2.5-3.75 billion dollars) over 30 years and has already allocated more than 200 million euros to prepare decomissioning of the first unit.

The Ignalina plant, which supplies about 70 percent of all energy consumed in the Baltic states, operates two Chernobyl-type RBMK reactors with 1300 Megawatt capacity each.

The first unit started to operate on December 31, 1983, the second was launched in August 1987.

However, the complete decommissioning of the plant is a lengthy, complicated process which will take decades.

"Nuclear fuel will remain in the first reactor after it is halted and it will take some five years to reload it. Then it should be stored, so the process will be long," Shevaldin said.

Rymantas Juozaitis, the head of state-owned energy company Lietuvos Energija, said the one remaining unit was capable of meeting Lithuania's energy needs on its own.

But he said that when energy needs are greatest, in winter, it would have to draw on the energy capacities of other power stations.

"But this will be necessary only in winter time when demand for energy in Lithuania reaches up to 1,800-1,900 Megawatts," he said.

However, he said the closure was not without risk for energy supplies.

"We are losing the capacities we have now and if something happens in Ignalina during the winter, we could experience an energy shortage," he said.

"But we are preparing for this and have preliminary agreements to import energy if required," Juozaitis said.

Lithuania will also lose profits from exporting energy, he said.

Last year Ignalina sold 14.25 billion kilowatthours of energy, almost half of which to neighbouring markets.

The plant earned 15.7 million litas (4.5 million euros) net profit last year, and projects 17.2 million litas profit for 2004.

The closure of Ignalina, which currently employs some 3,500 people, also has a social cost, with job losses expected over the years.

"Next year some 200 people will be notified that their work is to be terminated. The same number is to be fired over the next few years,"

Shevaldin said.

However, Lithuania still holds ambitions to produce nuclear energy, even after Ignalina closes, with the Vilnius government having said in its programme that it aims for "Lithuania to remain a country with nuclear energy".

"The government should try to attract private investment, because Lithuania alone will never afford the 1.5-2 billion euros to build a new nuclear reactor," Shevaldin said.

Juozaitis of the state owned energy company also believes that building of new nuclear reactor must be considered, to supply all three Baltic states -- Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

"All three Baltic states are isolated in the EU in terms of the energy market. We are like an island. Nuclear energy would ensure energy stability and security," Juozaitis said.

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