site.btaIdea for Gas Hub in Bulgaria Is Obviously on the Agenda - Energy Minister

Idea for Gas Hub in Bulgaria Is Obviously on the Agenda - Energy Minister

Sofia, February 19 (BTA) - The idea of the Bulgarian government
to establish a natural gas hub on the country's territory has
obviously reached Russian President Vladimir Putin but Bulgaria
is still expecting the opinion of its European partners, Energy
Minister Temenuzhka Petkova said Thursday. She was commenting
Putin's recent suggestion that Russia could still pipe natural
gas to Bulgaria via Turkey.

Speaking in Budapest, Putin suggested, as quoted by Euractive,
that Bulgaria could become part of the project again. But he
explained that it was out of question to return to the initial
South Stream project. The gas would arrive in the "European"
territory of Turkey via an offshore pipeline and from there, the
gas would flow directly to the Turkish-Greek border and reach
Bulgaria from Greece, Putin said.

Asked whether Russia is interested in the Bulgarian idea, the
Bulgarian Energy Minister said there have been such indications.
The Russian President is obviously familiar with the Bulgarian
proposal, she said.

Commenting on the opportunity for Bulgaria to renew some
activities on the South Stream project, the minister said the
European Commission launched an infringement procedure against
Bulgaria on June 2, 2014 and there is no way Bulgaria could
undertake new actions before the procedure is completed.

The deficit of the National Electric Company (NEK) now stands at
3,300 million leva, including nearly 600 million leva for 2014
alone, Petkova said. In order to reduce it, the ministry is
holding talks with the two US-owned Maritza thermal power plants
and the conditions for purchase of their electricity output by
NEK are expected to be renegotiated to mutual interest soon.

Part of the legislative changes in the Energy Act are also aimed
at reducing NEK's deficit (for example by excluding TPPs which
do not generate energy effectively from the energy mix). This
will reduce the deficit by about 100 million leva within this
year.

Petkova's comments came before the beginning of the
parliamentary Energy Committee meeting to discuss the revisions
to the Energy Act.