BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb.26
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
All efforts are aimed at the timely introduction of the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) in commercial exploitation, Bulgarian Minister of Energy Temenuzhka Petkova told Trend.
“Bulgaria has played a key role in the financial structuring of IGB: the Bulgarian state had provided a sovereign guarantee of EUR 110 million, which ensured favorable financing for the project from the European Investment Bank. Furthermore, €39 million grant was allocated from the Regional Development Fund under the Innovation and Competitiveness Operational Program of the EU funding for Bulgaria,” she said.
Petkova noted that the successful completion of the IGB project and its timely introduction into commercial exploitation are priority tasks with a view to diversifying gas supplies.
“For the full mobilization of the contractors and the completion of the project within the set time schedule, regular meetings are held on my initiative at the Ministry of Energy in order to take account of the activities related to the implementation of the project. These meetings are attended by representatives of the project company “ICGB”AD, the line pipe supplier – “Corinth Pipeworks”, the constructor – “JP AVAX” and of the owner’s engineer – “Consortium Tibey”. We have the assurance of the suppliers that the production of pipes is carried out according to the schedule. We expect deliveries of the first production batch to be completed in March. This will ensure availability of all types and sizes of pipes needed to build the interconnector,” she said.
“We are also making regular on-the-spot inspections to make sure that progress is made. The last such visit was on 20 February. All our efforts are aimed at the timely introduction of the connection in commercial exploitation.”
The Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria project envisages a two-stage development.
In the first stage, the pipeline capacity will be 3 billion cubic meters of gas, of which 2.7 billion cubic meters will be offered for the long-term market, the remaining share of 0.3 billion cubic meters in the short term.
In a second phase, also depending on the evolution of the market, the capacity of the pipeline can be increased to 5.3 billion cubic meters of gas thanks to the addition of a compression station: 4.5 billion cubic meters of gas 0.5 billion cubic meters of short-term gas will be offered for long-term products.
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