December 22 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria will start receiving natural gas from Azerbaijan via Greece as of December 31, diversifying its supplies, the Bulgarian government said on Tuesday.
Bulgaria will import some 1 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year from the Shah Deniz II field in Azerbaijan for a period of 25 years under a contract between public gas supplier Bulgargaz and Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company SOCAR, the government said in a statement.
Until the beginning of October 2021 Bulgaria will receive the Azeri natural gas through Kulata entry point, on the border with Greece. After that, the supplies will be received through the Bulgaria-Greece gas interconnection, currently under construction.
The pipeline, with a total estimated cost of 220 million euro ($269.6 million), will connect the Greek gas transmission system in the area of Komotini to the Bulgarian gas transmission system in the area of Stara Zagora. The projected capacity will be to 3 billion cu m per year in the direction from Greece to Bulgaria, which can subsequently be increased to 5 billion cu m.
The planned length of the gas link is 182 km, most of which will be laid on Bulgarian territory. Bulgarian prime minister Boyko Borissov said last month that 159 kilometres of line pipes for the gas interconnection were delivered, of which 72 km were welded.
Currently, Bulgaria imports almost all of the natural gas it needs from Russia.
($ = 0.815955 euro)