site.btaBulgaria, Greece, Romania Hold First Meeting on Vertical Gas Corridor in Sofia

Bulgaria, Greece, Romania Hold First Meeting on Vertical Gas Corridor in Sofia

Sofia, April 22 (BTA) - The Bulgarian-Greek gas interconnector
is expected to be operational in 2018, and the interconnector
with Romania is to reach its full reverse-flow capacity by the
end of 2016, it transpired from statements to the media by
senior energy officials of Bulgaria, Greece and Romania after
the first meeting here on Wednesday of an expert working group
for the vertical gas corridor.

Taking part in the meeting were Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister
for EU Funds and Economic Policy Tomislav Donchev, Energy
Minister Temenouzhka Petkova, Greece's Productive
Reconstruction, Environment and Energy Minister Panagiotis
Lafazanis, and Mihai Adrian Albulescu, State Secretary at the
Energy Department of Romania's Ministry of Economy.

The setting up of a vertical gas corridor is handled by a
regional subgroup within the High Level Group on Central and
Southeast Europe Gas Connectivity, established in Sofia on
February 9, 2015.

"The initiative of Bulgaria, Greece and Romania will ensure
energy security and diversification of supplies for the
participating countries," Petkova said. "Today we concurred on
the exceptional importance of interconnectivity. The fundamental
principles underlying the agreement on the construction of the
Bulgaria-Greece interconnector were signed as well," the
Bulgarian Energy Minister said. A 10 million euro budget of the
project company was also approved on Wednesday. "Jointly with
our Greek partners, we signed a letter to the European
Commission seeking a 220 million grant for this crucial
project," Petkova explained.

The final investment decision on the construction of the
interconnector with Greece will be adopted on May 29, 2015, the
facility will go under construction after March 2016 and is
supposed to be commissioned in the second half of 2018, the
Bulgarian Energy Minister said.

The interconnector with Romania has made major progress:
Transgaz and Bulgartransgaz have launched public procurement
procedures for selecting a contractor to repair the pipe under
the River Danube, Petkova also said. "We hope the interconnector
to be commissioned by the end of 2015," she added. "We
discussed the need of building a compressor station in Romanian
territory, and our partners assured us that the costs of
building such a station are included in the project company and
it will be done," the Bulgarian Energy Minister pointed out.

"You can count on Romania, all documents on the construction of
the compressor station have been finalized, the European
Commission, too, has adopted a decision, and the project will be
implemented under an international programme," said Albulescu.
He noted that at present the capacity of the interconnector is
1,500 million cu m from Bulgaria to Romania and 500 million cu m
from Romania to Bulgaria. Once the compressor station is ready
(in late 2016 or early 2017), the same capacity will be
available in both directions, the Romanian official specified.

Deputy PM Donchev said that the gas map of Southeastern Europe
is changing and "we must be ready for all possible future
scenarios". "In recent months, there has often been talk about a
European Energy Union, but this union is impossible without an
adequate network of regional projects," he argued. He sees the
vertical gas corridor as a possibility to transport gas in
various directions and to use various sources: Russian gas, gas
coming from the North, and gas locally produced by Bulgaria and
Romania.

Replying to a reporter's question, Lafazanis said that after the
frustration of the South Stream project, Greece is ready to
build an infrastructure piping gas from Turkish Stream to
Western Europe. For his part, Donchev commented that he finds it
difficult to see economic sense in building a new
infrastructure for the sole purpose of implementing Turkish
Stream.