Bulgaria Vows to Build Gas Links with Greece, Turkey by End-2013

Bulgarian Economy and Energy Minister Delyan Dobrev. File photo by BGNES

Bulgaria will make up for delays in constructing its gas interconnector links with Greece and Turkey, Bulgarian Economy and Energy Minister Delyan Dobrev has promised.

On Sunday, the country's state network operator Bulgartransgaz revealed it expected a one year delay in the project until the end of 2014.

However, Dobrev has stated that the Bulgartransgaz estimate was too cvonservetive.

"Bulgartransgaz presented only a plan. We are however working to speed up the interconnector links and have them operational by the end of 2013," he has told Reuters.

The construction of the two gas links has been delayed by technical hurdles with Greece and slow negotiations with Turkey.

Bulgaria's 25-km gas interconnector with Romania will be completed and functional by the end of May 2013, while the country's gas interconnector with Serbia is scheduled to be ready in 2015.

Bulgaria moved to link its natural gas grid to those of its neighbors after the January 2009 gas war between Russia and Ukraine, which cut off the Russian gas supplies to Bulgaria for full three weeks leaving it without natural gas in the middle of the winter.

In February 2011, the European Council decided that each EU member state should have at least two sources of natural gas and electricity by 2014 in order to avoid a repetition of the Russian-Ukrainian gas crisis.

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