January 24 (SeeNews) - The coordination committee of the EU's Connecting Europe Facility has decided to grant over 27 million euro to Bulgaria's gas transmission system operator Bulgartransgaz to support a project for rehabilitation, modernization and expansion of the country gas transit network.
The contract will be signed following a decision by the European Commission, Bulgartransgaz said in a statement on Wednesday.
The project envisages the implementation of construction works, procurement of materials and equipment for the replacement (rehabilitation) of two sections of the Northern semi-ring of the existing gas transmission network with a total length of about 81 km.
The sections are part of the European Commission's list of projects of common interest. The project is also part of Bulgaria's concept for building a regional gas hub - Balkan.
The gas hub project envisages the construction of an EU-funded regional gas distribution centre in Varna region, near the Black Sea coast, that would dispatch deliveries of natural gas to the rest of Europe. 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 Bulgarian government has said. The gas hub could also be supplied via an interconnector with Romania, which is estimated to have significant deposits in the Black Sea shelf.