BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 1
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
Bulgaria’s invitation for Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR to invest in household gas supply network in Bulgaria is still on place, Bulgarian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Nikolay Yankov told Trend.
“So, I am sure that Bulgaria will keep its role of facilitator of all future Azerbaijani and European projects in the energy field, including in the renewable energy field.
If Azerbaijan continues to further develop new gas fields and if the SGC consortium decides to enlarge the current TAP’s annual capacity to 31 bln m3 then, of course, Bulgaria will be very much interested in benefiting from this, if not as an investor, at least as an end-user and a transit country. As I said before, Bulgaria has the ambition to become an important gas distribution hub on the Balkans and thus it will need more gas flow from different sources and routes,” said the envoy.
In 2018, Bulgarian energy ministry held fruitful discussions and conversations with SOCAR representatives on the opportunities to participate in the development of the gasification in Bulgaria. In particular, it is about investments by the Azerbaijan state oil company in gas distribution and mainly in household gas supply, which has a huge potential for development in Bulgaria.
Bulgarian energy minister Temenuzhka Petkova earlier said that SOCAR was studying Bulgarian gas distribution sector. In this regard, at the end of 2018, SOCAR announced a procedure for preparing a feasibility study on investment opportunities in the gas distribution sector in Bulgaria. No updates have been provided since then.
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