Bulgaria's Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has asserted the country is "actively working" tomake sure "everything" that regards gas transportation is fully state-owned.

Borisov made his remarks at a Tuesday ceremony marking the successful reconstruction and renovation of a gas compressor station in the town of Ihtiman, not far from the capital Sofia, was officially reopened on Tuesday.

The gas transportation network of Bulgaria will be a "key asset" in negotiations to set up a gas hub in the country, Borisov argued. After the demise of South Stream, a pipeline project which was set to supply Southeastern and Central Europe with gas via Bulgaria, was abandoned, his government has been promoting the idea to establish a gas distribution center in the country.

Some 20-30 billion cubic meters of gas could be transited via Bulgaria through the interconnections with Greece, Turkey and Macedonia when they are finished and after the gas depot in Chiren (NW Bulgaria) is expanded, the PM added.

The repair is worth BGN 34 M and was needed to comply with EU environmental requirements Investor.bg quotes gas transportation company Bulgatransgaz's CEO Georgi Gegov as saying at the ceremony. Six other gas compressor stations are to be reopened in the next few weeks.

For the entire gas transportation network, reconstruction works will cost to the tune of BGN 204 M.

"We do all of this to be competitive and when I sit at the negotiation table the region's best gas transportation system is behind me with billions invested in in, so that we can stand up for our position that Bulgaria should be a gas distribution center," Focus News Agency quotes Borisov as saying.