August 16 (SeeNews) - The national regulators of Greece and Bulgaria have decided to exempt the Gas Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria project from requirements regarding third party access, tariff regulation and ownership unbundling, the project company, ICGB, said on Thursday.
"ICGB will study in depth the exemption decision and will proceed with the implementation of the necessary actions in order to fulfil the conditions set in the decision in the provided timeframe, including the preparation and the conclusion of the Gas Transportation Agreements," Teodora Georgieva, executive officer at ICGB from the Bulgarian side, said in a statement.
"The issuance of the exemption decision is the only outstanding step in the process of obtaining an installation permit for the Greek section of the pipeline, which is an equivalent to the construction permit obtained for the Bulgarian section on 4th of October 2017," Konstantinos Karayannakos, executive officer at ICGB from the Greek side, added.
The IGB pipeline 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 planned length of the pipeline is 182 km and the projected capacity will be up to 3 billion cubic metres (bcm) per year in the direction from Greece to Bulgaria. Depending on interest from the market and the capacities of the neighbouring gas transmission systems, the capacity of the pipeline can be increased up to 5 bcm per year, thus allowing for physical reverse flow from Bulgaria to Greece with the additional installation of a compressor station.
The gas link is estimated to cost 220 million euro ($250.8 million). The project company has secured a sovereign guarantee of 110 million euro under the annual state budget act, which could ensure loan financing under preferable conditions.
The project is being implemented by the joint venture company ICGB, in which state-owned Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH) and Greece-registered IGI Poseidon hold equal shares. Greek public gas corporation DEPA and Italian energy group Edison own 50% each of IGI Poseidon.
($ = 0.8770 euro)