Brussels, 02/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - At a meeting in Sofia on Monday 29 March, the partners in the construction of the gas interconnection project between Bulgaria and Greece, the IGB gas pipeline, which will extend the route of the Southern gas corridor as far as the Poseidon gas pipeline linking Greece to Italy, said that they hope that construction work will be able to begin in March 2016 and conclude in 2018.
At this meeting with its Bulgarian partner, the state gas company Bulgarian Energy Holding, the Poseidon consortium expressed its hopes of being able to sign off a final investment decision on 29 May, once a new agreement is signed to accelerate the development of the project in line with the timetable laid down in the roadmap of the project, which will have a total price tag of €220 million.
Bulgarian Energy Minister Temenouzhka Petkova passed on the Commission's assurances that the EU will ensure the necessary funding for the construction of the project, the Bulgarian press reports. Petkova stressed Sofia's efforts to speed up the project and confirmed the existence of a Bulgarian state guarantee of €80 million for this purpose in the annual budget. “This underlines the strategic importance of this interconnection for Bulgaria”, she stated. (Emmanuel Hagry)