July 8 (SeeNews) - The Greece-Bulgaria natural gas interconnector was inaugurated on Friday following the completion of the construction phase, the project company developing the facility, ICGB, said.
Efforts are being made to shorten as much as possible the administrative procedures by Greek and Bulgarian institutions so that the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria can be promptly commissioned, ICGB said in a statement.
The inauguration ceremony took place at the gas measuring station near the Greek city of Komotini, where the pipeline connects to the gas transmission network of Greece and to the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). The facility allows for the supply of gas to the Western Balkans and ensures supplies to Moldova and Ukraine, ICGB executive officer Teodora Georgieva said.
"The end of the construction of IGB comes after a number of challenges and obstacles that we were able to overcome only thanks to the consistent efforts of the ICGB team, the company's shareholders, the political will of the governments of Bulgaria and Greece and the unequivocal support of the European Commission," Georgieva noted.
The Greece-Bulgaria Interconnector is a new route for secure, diversified supplies, and will reshape the energy map of the region, said ICGB executive officer from the Greek side Konstantinos Karayannakos.
The 220 million euro ($223.1 million), 182-kilometre fully-automated gas link is connected to the TAP, allowing for additional quantities of gas from Azerbaijan that arrive in Greek ports to flow to Italy and the wider Southeast Europe (SEE) region. It will also enable the flow of liquefied natural gas to Bulgaria and SEE from Greece's Alexandroupolis LNG terminal, paving the way for potential future LNG imports from the US, Algeria, Qatar, Egypt and other suppliers. The pipeline is seen as a crucial element of the European Union's plans to give up Russian gas supplies entirely by 2030 and beyond.
ICGB has been filling the interconnector with test quantities of natural gas since mid-June, it said. The company is finalising the integration of the system for automated control and overall management of the gas pipeline, or the so-called SCADA system.
Last week, ICGB was certified as an independent transmission operator by the Bulgarian and Greek energy regulators.
($ = 0.9860 euro)