September 20 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's Bulgartransgaz will complete the construction of an 11-km gas pipeline starting from the Turkish border, which will serve as part of the extension of Gazprom's TurkStream pipeline toward Serbia, energy minister Temenuzhka Petkova said on Friday.
The new pipeline will connect to 140 km of existing infrastructure, while the construction of a further 308 km is expected to be completed next year, Petkova said in an interview for private broadcaster bTV.
Earlier this week, Bulgaria's state-owned gas transmission operator Bulgartransgaz signed a 1.1 billion euro ($1.2 billion) contract with Saudi-led consortium Arkad for the construction of a gas pipeline from the country's border with Turkey to the border with Serbia.
In the first stage, 308 km of the pipeline's length will be built, from Polski Senovets compressor station westward to the border with Serbia, within a 250-day period. In the second stage, the contractor will build the remaining 166 km, from Polski Senovets to the village of Zlatina in eastern Bulgaria.
The offshore section of the TurkStream pipeline stretching 930 km across the Black Sea from Russia to Turkey consists of two parallel strings with annual throughput capacity of 15.75 billion cubic metres of gas each. One string is intended for consumers in Turkey, while the second will carry gas to customers in Europe through Bulgaria.
($ = 0.9049 euro)