Bulgaria Might Reexport Natural Gas from Azerbaijan

Business » ENERGY | August 13, 2010, Friday // 17:17
Bulgaria: Bulgaria Might Reexport Natural Gas from Azerbaijan Pictured: Bulgarian President Parvanov welcomed his Azerbaijan counterpart Aliyev in Sofia in November 2009, and visited him in Baku in April 2010. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria might reexport some its future supplies of natural gas from Azerbaijan to other European states.

This possibility was discussed by a Bulgarian-Azerbaijani working group which met in Baku over the week, announced Ivan Drenchovski, director of Bulgartransgaz, a subsidiary of the Bulgarian state-owned gas company Bulgargaz, as cited by the Standart Daily.

In his words, the Bulgarian government is working on the development of two transit routes of natural gas from Azerbaijan to Bulgaria – one via pipelines going through Turkey, and another one through compressed gas terminals and shipments through the Black Sea.

The Black Sea route transit, however, will become operational only after the construction of the respective infrastructure, which will be in 2013 at the earliest. Drenchovski said that in the future up to half of the natural gas consumed in Bulgaria might come from Azerbaijan.

At present, well over 90% of Bulgaria’s natural gas is supplied by the Russian energy giant Gazprom, and the country has floated various options to diversify its sources – much in line with the polices sought to be realized by the EU with the construction of the Nabucco gas transit pipeline.

Bulgaria has already been promised by Azerbaijan supplies of 2 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year.

The gas supply options discussed by the Bulgarian and Azerbaijani experts includes the potential involvement not just of Bulgartransgaz and Azerbaijan’s state energy company SOCAR but also the consortium operating the rich Shah Deniz field consisting of BP (25.5%), Statoil (25.5%), Total (10%), LUKoil (10%), Socar (10%), NaftIran or Nico (10%) and TPAO (9%).

Bulgaria is a staunch supporter of the EU-sponsored Nabucco gas transit pipeline, of which Azerbaijan is the main supplier, and it might be receiving some of its Azerbaijani gas through Nabucco after the completion of the pipeline.

With respect to the Black Sea route envisaging the transit of compressed or liquefied natural gas, however, the Bulgarian government, however, is lagging behind Romania, which already concluded a specific agreement with Azerbaijan and Georgia for the gas transportation project “Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania Interconnector (AGRI)“.

During a recent meeting in Sofia, the presidents of Bulgaria and Azerbaijan set 2011 as the deadline for the first Azeribaijani gas shipments to Bulgaria.

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Tags: azerbaijan, natural gas, turkey, Georgia, Nabucco, Bulgartransgaz, Bulgargaz, gas transit, Black Sea, liquefied natural gas, Ivan Drenchovski, SOCAR, Shah Deniz, BP, Total, Statoil

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