Bulgartransgaz opens tender for feasibility study on Balkan gas hub

The feasibility study aims to assess the commercial and technical viability of the project and the risks associated with its implementation, according to the tender notice posted on the website of Bulgaria's public procurement agency last week.

The project is being co-funded under the EU's Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), which will cover 50% of the cost of the feasibility study.

The deadline for submitting offers is November 1.

In December 2014, the Bulgarian government proposed to the European Commission to build an EU-funded regional gas hub near the Black Sea port of Varna to dispatch gas deliveries to the rest of Europe - to Greece, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia and, via those countries, to EU member states in central and western Europe, as well as to non-EU Serbia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Gas can be fed into the hub from Russia, from Bulgaria's potential gas deposits in the Black Sea or, via interconnectors with Greece and Turkey, from the Caspian region or the Eastern Mediterranean, or from the Greek and Turkish LNG terminals, the government said at the time. The gas hub could also be supplied via an interconnector with Romania, which is estimated to have significant deposits in the Black Sea shelf.

($ = 0.8522 euro)