March 11 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria is ready to buy around one billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas from Azerbaijan to secure supplies for the future pipeline Nabucco designed to carry Caspian gas to Europe, the press office of Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov said.
"This is the gas quota assigned to Bulgaria under [...] the Nabucco project," the press office quoted Parvanov as saying late on Monday during an official visit to Azerbaijan. Independent Azeri news agency Turan also reported that Bulgaria was ready to buy around one billion cubic metres of gas a year.
Bulgaria is shareholder in the 5.0 billion euro ($7.7 billion) Nabucco gas pipeline project, also favoured by the U.S., together with Turkey, Romania, Hungary, Austria and Germany. The 3,000- kilometre pipeline is planned to reduce the European Union's reliance on Russian gas supplies and will be able to transit up to 31 billion cubic metres (bcm) of Caspian gas when completed.
The Azeri gas could be transported to Bulgaria after Bulgaria's gas network is hooked up to the nearby Turkey-Greece link, Parvanov's press office quoted him as saying during a joint news conference with his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev in Baku on Monday.
The Turkey-Greece gas link is part of the Turkey-Greece-Italy (TGI) gas pipeline, designed to link Azerbaijan and Italy and carry Azeri and Iranian gas to Europe and expected to be completed in 2012. Bulgaria plans to build a 70-80 kilometre stretch between its southern town of Haskovo and the Greek northeastern town of Komotini where the TGI gas pipeline is lying.
Azerbaijan gas output is seen at 3.0 billion cubic metres this year, Aliyev was quoted as telling the same news conference.
The Nabucco will start at the Georgian/Turkish and/or Iranian/Turkish border and will link the Caspian region, Middle East and Egypt via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary with Austria and further on with the Central and Western European gas markets. Construction works on the Nabucco pipeline are due to start in 2010 and the first transport of gas to be made in 2013.
Bulgaria, whose gas supplies come almost solely from Russia, also is a shareholder in the 10 billion euro Russian-led South Stream project. The joint project of Russia's gas giant Gazprom and Italian oil and gas company Eni is designed to carry 30 billion cubic metres of Russian gas yearly to Austria and Italy under the Black Sea and via Bulgarian territory.
($ = 0.6520 euro)