July 8 (SeeNews) - Romanian prime minister Nicolae Ciuca said that the Greece-Bulgaria gas pipeline, which is due to become operational on Friday, will enable Romania to supply gas to Ukraine and Moldova.
The 220 million euro ($225 million), 182-kilometre gas link connects the Greek gas transmission system in the area of Komotini to the Bulgarian gas grid in the area of Stara Zagora.
"Basically, this interconnector will ensure the connection between the network passing through Anatolia and the Adriatic and also connects to the BRUA pipeline, thus giving consistency to the vertical corridor and ensuring the gas supply of both Bulgaria and Romania. Of course, we can then ensure the gas supply to our eastern partners, Ukraine and Moldova, as well as to the other countries that are on the distribution map network," Ciuca told a news conference on Thursday.
At the end of June, Ciuca said that Romania will fill its natural gas reserves to 80% of its storage capacity by November 1 from 40% at present in compliance with recent EU regulation.
At the end of May, Romanian president Klaus Iohannis endorsed a new bill expected to speed up the development of major offshore oil and gas projects in the Black Sea. In mid-June, Romania-based BSOG announced that production has started from the MGD Project and the first amounts of gas were delivered to the National Transmission System.
Romania hopes to be able to start exporting natural gas from the Black Sea offshore project Neptun Deep in 2027, Ciuca said in April.
In May, local natural gas producer Romgaz signed a contract for the acquisition of Exxon Mobil's 50% stake in Neptun Deep for $1.06 billion. The other half of the rights and obligations under the concession is held by Romanian oil and gas group OMV Petrom.
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