October 1 (SeeNews) - Following are some of the main stories in Bulgarian newspapers on Thursday morning. SeeNews has not verified these reports and cannot vouch for their accuracy.
DNEVNIK
- Bulgaria will pay 9,300 euro to each of the 42 former workers of the Plama oil refinery near the town of Pleven, after a decision in Strasbourg, the government said. The workers won the case against their former employer for unpaid compensations in 1998, but the compensations have not been paid so far because Plama also had public creditors, which under the state law have priority.
- The IGI Poseidon consortium, owned equally by Greece’s DEPA and Italy’s Edison, will have a 50% stake in the gas pipeline Stara Zagora-Haskovo-Komotini, state-run energy group Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH) said. BEH signed a memorandum of understanding earlier this year with IGI Poseidon on the gas pipeline, estimated to cost 125 million euro. This gas link is to be connected to the Interconnection Turkey-Greece-Italy (ITGI) gas pipeline in order to diversify Bulgaria’s gas routs. Bulgaria covers around 90% of its natural gas needs from Russian imports.
- The Municipality of Sofia will sell its debt-ridden heating utility Toplofikatsia Sofia to a strategic investor, Economy Minister Traycho Traykov said. The Sofia Municipal Council decided last year to transfer its 58% stake in the utility to the former socialist-led government, but now the utility will be given back to the Municipality, Traykov said. The buyer will have to repay all the utility’s debts to state-run Bulgargaz. The debt stands at around 120 million levs compared to 110 million levs last year.
PARI
- The second bridge linking Bulgaria and Romania over the Danube river will be ready by 2011, Transport Minister Ivailo Moskovski said. Bulgaria said earlier it will ask Brussels to extend the 2010 deadline for the utilisation of EU financing for the bridge construction, or else Bulgaria may lose 70 million euro under the EU's ISPA programme.
KLASA
- French power group Electricite de France (EDF) will become a partner in the South Stream gas pipeline project by the end of November, the daily reported. Russia's Gazprom and Italian oil and gas group Eni, which are in a 50/50 joint venture, will each give to EDF a 5.0% stake in the project, the daily reported. Gazprom said earlier this week the two main shareholders are in talks with a possible third partner for the construction of the undersea section of the pipeline. The whole project, estimated to cost some 10 billion euro, will carry some 63 billion cubic metres of Russian gas yearly to Western Europe.
(1 euro=1.95583 Bulgarian levs)