Bulgaria supports increasing twofold the capacity of the planned Russian-sponsored gas transit pipeline “South Stream”.

This has been stated Friday night at a news conference in Sofia by Bulgaria’s Minister of Economy, Energy, and Tourism, Traicho Traikov, who participated in the 13th meeting of the Intergovernmental Bulgarian-Russian Commission for Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation together with Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko.

Traikov said Bulgaria has received the detailed explanation it required with respect to the proposal of the Russian side from increasing the capacity of the South Stream gas pipeline from 31 billion cubic meters to 63 billion cubic meters per year.

In his words, in its consultation with other EU countries Bulgaria was going to support the idea for declaring South Stream an object of European-wide significance.

He explained that Bulgaria and Russia were starting negotiations at the corporate level for hammering out all aspects of the bilateral relations with respect to the supplies and transit of natural gas.

Russian Energy Minister, Sergei Shmatko, declared that the long-term contracts and projects such as South Stream were a durable guarantee for the energy security and stability of Europe.

He said that even though liquefied natural gas was sometimes sold cheaper than the guys supplied by Russia because there was an abundant supply of natural gas. Yet, in his words, the situation might end up being the other way around in the future, and that is when the benefits of the long-term projects would be appreciated by the European consumers.

“The European consumers and buyers must appreciate the attractiveness of the cooperation within which they will be able to get the necessary quantity of gas for decades to come,” Shamko pointed out.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!