site.btaOvergas Inc. Has No Overdue Payments to Any Company, Including Gazprom Export

Overgas Inc. Has No Overdue Payments to Any Company, Including Gazprom Export

Sofia, January 2 (BTA) - Overgas Inc. released a media statement on Saturday giving the chronology of the problem with natural gas supplies at the very end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016.

Commenting on insinuations by the executive directors of the Bulgarian Energy Holding and Bulgartransgaz about overdue payments, Overgas also stressed it had no matured debt to any company, including Gazprom Export. Moreover, it has never been refused credit, which is an independent assessment of the company's creditworthiness, the press release said.

In line with the contract between Overgas Inc. and Gazprom Export, the Bulgarian private company duly sent an annual programme, ordered the required amounts of gas by quarter, and opened a bank guarantee.

Overgas places an order with the Balkan Dispatch Centre (BDC) every day for the next three days. This has become an established practice although it is not envisaged in the agreement and is not a contractual obligation. That is why Overgas does not consider BDC's reply showing zero ordered supplies for January 1, 2016 an official document.

Receiving this reply from BDC on December 29, 2015, Overgas promptly contacted Gazprom Export's Director General asking for confirmation of the ordered gas volumes.

To avoid any risk to its customers, without waiting for a reply from Gazprom, Overgas' management informed a Bulgargaz representative about the unexpected difficulty, saying that Overgas would use the services of Bulgargaz as public supplier.

After 5 pm on December 31, Overgas received a reply from Gazprom Export saying that the order cannot be filled and that the Russian company has taken steps to supply the required amount to Overgas' customers through Bulgargaz.