site.btaWork on the Bulgarian-Serbian Interconnector Is Accelerated

Work on the Bulgarian-Serbian Interconnector Is Accelerated

Sofia, January 19 (BTA) - Bulgarian Energy Minister Temenouzhka Petkova and Serbia's Minister of Energy and Mining Aleksandar Antic signed a memorandum of understanding on the project for the construction of the Bulgaria-Serbia interconnector.Thereby, the two sides agree to pay maximum efforts in order to begin the construction of the interconnector by May 2019 at the latest, so that it could be set into operation by the end of 2020.

Minister Antic told a news briefing that the two sides discussed technical details of the project as well as the development plan and its financing. On the Serbian side, the project will be financed under the pre-accession instruments.

Minister Petkova said that, for the Bulgarian section, 45 million euro have been provided under Operational Programme Competitiveness. The first stage has been completed but in order to launch the second construction stage, the Serbian side needs to make reciprocal actions. Petkova and Antic noted that the project will be developed parallel to the Bulgaria-Greece interconnector as the two facilities will be set into operation in 2020.

Taking a question regarding the interconnector with Greece, Minister Petkova said that due to the high interest a new procedure is about to be launched for the amounts of natural gas that could not be reserved in the second stage of the market test. The capacity of the interconnector is between 3,000 and 5,000 million cu m of gas. A total of 1,583 million cu m were reserved in the second binding stage of the market test.

Petkova also said that Bulgaria also works on the project for the interconnector with Turkey, defined as a project of common interest within the EU. A feasibility study has been carried out within it and has been presented to the Turkish partners.