Baku, Azerbaijan, May 30
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
Additional market test can be held for assessing the demand for expanding the capacity of the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB), Teodora Georgieva, executive director of the ICGB project company, said in an interview with Trend.
She recalled that the bidding phase of the market test based on the Bidding Phase Guidelines started on 5 August 2016 until 30 November 2016.
“During the bidding phase of the market test, five companies in total, including the ICGB AD shareholders, expressed their interest to book capacity on the IGB. The capacity that was booked for forward flow was 1.57 billion cubic meters per year in the direction from Greece to Bulgaria,” noted Georgieva.
The executive director said that the non-exempted capacity will be allocated via auction procedures on capacity booking platform strictly following EU regulations and best business practices.
“ICGB AD will be under an obligation to build the additional capacity provided that it is economically viable. In order to assess the demand for the capacity expansion, the national regulatory authorities require the IGB to organize an additional market test. The market test should be organized no later than three years after the start of the IGB’s commercial operation,” she noted.
However, Georgieva said that currently a date for market test related to additional capacity has not been fixed.
The groundbreaking ceremony for IGB was held May 22 in Bulgaria.
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 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.
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