Bulgaria has paid over 383 million euros for the purchase of Azeri gas in 2022. This was reported by the Russian news agency "Interfax" on Wednesday, citing unpublished data from the European Statistics Agency.

The amount represents an eightfold increase compared to the previous year, the agency notes.

Only three European countries had contracts for the supply of Azeri gas last year - Bulgaria, Greece and Italy.

They have imported gas for a total of 15.6 billion euros against 3.9 billion spent by them in 2021, which is an increase of about four times.

In 2022, Italy spent 13.2 billion euros to buy gas from Azerbaijan (a 3.9-fold increase for the year), Greece - 1.9 billion (a 4.2-fold increase) and Bulgaria - 383 million - an increase of almost 8 times.

Bulgaria began importing the entire agreed amount of Azeri gas after the 12-year construction of the Greece-Bulgaria interconnector was completed in September. It was officially launched on October 1 in the presence of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev.

In 2022, Azerbaijan increased gas exports by 18% to 22.3 billion cubic meters, half of which (11.4 billion cubic meters) was delivered to Europe.

Baku has promised to increase its exports this year to 24 billion cubic meters, with at least 12 billion cubic meters of them going to Italy, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania.

At the end of April, Gazprom stopped supplying gas to Bulgaria, leaving the government with the urgent need to find replacements for its main supplier. Azeri gas provides about a third of the consumption in Bulgaria, the remaining quantities were provided by importing liquefied gas.

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