Brussels, 17/12/2012 (Agence Europe) - The cost of this project is estimated to be between €100 million and €120 million. It is expected to help towards enhancing energy security in the Balkans.
The Bulgarian prime minister, Boïko Borissov and his Serbian counterpart, Ivica Dacic, signed a memorandum for an agreement on the construction of a gas pipeline linking the gas networks of their respective countries. The agreement was signed on Friday 14 December in Brussels in the presence of the Commissioner for energy Günther Oettinger.
This pipeline will be 180 km long, with an annual capacity for supplying 1.8 billion m3 of gas. It will link up the Serbian cities of Nis and Dimitrovgrad with the capital of Bulgaria, Sofia. The work will begin in July 2013 and will end in 2015. Possible funding will come from the European Regional Development Programme.
Borissov and Dacic explained that the project is expected to help the two countries to avoid any repetition of the gas crisis that occurred in January 2009, following cuts in Russian gas deliveries to South Eastern European countries. Both Bulgaria and Serbia are to a large extent dependent on Russian gas suppliers. Oettinger underlined the fact that this interconnection will help transport Russian gas but also gas from the LNG terminal in Greece, which is supplied by Qatar and the Caspian Sea region for the medium term.
Bulgaria is committed to strengthening its gas links with its other neighbours, Greece, Romania and Turkey. The Bulgarian section of the interconnection with Turkey could also become the starting point of the West Nabucco project, supported by the EU. This aims to transport gas from the Caspian region to Europe through Bulgaria and Austria. Bulgaria is also involved in Nabucco's rival South Stream project, headed by Russia (see EUROPE 10751). (EH/transl.fl)