Baku, Azerbaijan, August 15
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
The procedure for property rights establishment for the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) project is about to be fully completed for all approximately 4,000 land plots affected, Teodora Georgieva, executive officer at ICGB AD joint venture company, told Trend.
“The compensations set in Decision №1089 dated 28.12.2016 for the expropriated parts of properties - private property (23 properties) required for technological sites have been transferred to a specially opened account to the benefit of the persons entitled. Notices of the funds transferred have been published in central and local daily newspapers, on the project official website and have been provided to municipalities for notification,” she said.
Georgieva noted that as of today, only one owner affected is appealing in court the expropriation decision but negotiations have been held and an agreement has been reached for out-of-court settlement of the dispute and voluntary expropriation of the real rights required.
“Easement rights required for the linear part of the gas pipeline have been established and the compensations set by the municipal committees have been transferred to the owners affected,” she said. “The easements established have been registered with the registry offices as per location of the properties in 7 out of 9 municipalities affected. For the remaining two municipalities, the registration of easement rights established is being processed.”
The executive officer noted that for Bulgarian territory of the pipeline (151 km), the construction permit has to be obtained in the third quarter of 2017, which in line with the approved road map for the project.
By then the project company needs to have fully completed real rights establishment and to have valid coordination and approvals of all stakeholders, she added.
“Now we are working at full speed trying to compensate all delays. I would like to add that we managed to file to regulators in Bulgaria and Greece the refined application for exemption which will be an important milestone for the project when approved both by regulators and EU,” said Georgieva. “We are expected also to launch the crucial tenders by the end of the year and boost the project ahead.”
IGB is a gas pipeline, which will allow Bulgaria to receive Azerbaijani gas, in particular, the gas produced from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz 2 gas and condensate field. IGB is expected to be connected to the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) via which gas from the Shah Deniz field will be delivered to the European markets.
The initial capacity of IGB will be 3 billion cubic meters of gas. The project’s cost is estimated at around 240 million euros.
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