Bulgaria launched a joint tender with Romania to complete the much-delayed gas interconnector between the Balkan neighbours, the state owned gas network operator Bulgartransgaz said.
The Black Sea state, which gets more than 90 percent of its gas from Gazprom through one route, has stepped up efforts to connect its gas network to neighbours after Moscow cancelled its South Stream pipeline project.
“The Bulgaria-Romania gas interconnector is expected to be operational this year,” Bulgartransgaz’s spokesman told Reuters on Friday.
The reverse flow interconnection is 25 km long, of which 15.4 km is in Bulgarian territory and 7.5 km in Romania.
Bulgartransgaz said that Romania’s state-owned gas pipeline operator Transgaz authorised the Bulgarian company to start a joint public procurement for the construction of the 2.1 km gas Danube pipeline undercrossing.
Works on the 24 million euros ($25.69 million) pipeline began in 2012. According to the initial plan, the interconnector should have been ready in 2013, but the deadline was pushed back due to technical difficulties.
The pipeline will have a maximum transport capacity of 1.5 billion cubic metres of gas per year from Bulgaria, which hopes to become a gas distribution hub for Europe, to Romania. The capacity from Romania to Bulgaria will be 500 million cubic metres per year.
Earlier this month, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said the Black Sea state wants the European Commission to revive plans for the Nabucco pipeline that would pump gas from the Caspian Sea, after the South Stream pipeline, seen as a rival was scrapped.
Bulgaria expects that EU will fund the gas interconnector with Greece, Borisov said on Friday.
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said Bulgaria could build an interconnector with Greece to draw gas from the The Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) route, which could then be sent on to Romania and Hungary.
Reuters
