Bulgaria to buy gas from Azerbaijan soon

Construction of the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria gas pipeline will start in 2015, Azerbaijani Minister of Energy Natig Aliyev said at a meeting with Bulgaria's Economy and Energy Minister Dragomir Stoynev, Trend reported on April 16. 

Stoynev said that Bulgaria intends to secure gas supplies from Azerbaijan as soon as possible, ITAR-TASS reports. "A billion cubic meters of gas from Azerbaijan, on the supply of which we have signed an agreement in September 2013, will be supplied via the interconnector with Greece, and the technical design of the pipeline is to be prepared this year. By the end of April we will start to solve the problems of financing the project, and several banks have already expressed the preliminary desire to participate in it. And the construction of a direct interconnector will begin next year," Stoynev said. 

The bilateral relations between Bulgaria and Azerbaijan reach the level of strategic partnership, Aliyev said. "We found the real solution to the issue of gas supplies to Bulgaria last year, when an agreement signed on the supply of one billion cubic meters of gas in the presence of conditions for its transportation, which, particularly, envisages the need for constructing an interconnector between the "Bulgargaz" company, Shah Deniz consortium and the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic," the Azerbaijani minister noted.

Bakudaily.az