February 26 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria expects to start the construction of its natural gas interconnection with Serbia in May, the CEO of state-owned gas transmission system operator Bulgartransgaz said on Friday.
The gas link, which has a length of some 62 kilometres on Bulgarian soil, is expected to be completed in May 2023, Vladimir Malinov said in a press release issued by the energy ministry.
Bulgaria has secured funding of 27 million euro ($32.7 million) under the EU's Connecting Europe Facility and 2.7 million euro from operational programme Innovation and Competitiveness 2014-2020 for the project.
The country's tender for building the gas link attracted offers from eleven candidates with the winner still to be selected.
Serbia is expected to launch the tender for its section of the gas interconnector next week, according to the statement. The length of the pipeline in Serbia is some 108 kilometres.
($ = 0.8252 euro)