BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug.8. Western Balkans are a new opportunity that can work very cohesively with Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB), Teodora Georgieva, executive director of ICGB AD project company from Bulgaria said in an exclusive interview with Trend.
“To be completely honest, we started the IGB project some years ago in a completely different reality. Back then we were already convinced the market will be highly interested in this project and that the regional benefits would be great, but today when we’re so close to commercial launch the relevance of this project goes beyond any national border. Now we’re talking not only about securing diverse, regular deliveries for Bulgaria and Greece, but we’re looking at deliveries for the entire SEE region. The Western Balkans are a whole new opportunity that can work very cohesively with IGB, and upon the upgrade of our capacity to 5 bcm/y we could be providing deliveries to Moldova and Ukraine as well. My team and I are extremely grateful to be developing this project as it will be one of the first huge steps towards a stronger, united and connected Europe in light of this new environment,” she said.
The IGB project is of key importance for increasing security of supply and for ensuring diversification of natural gas sources for Bulgaria and the region of Southeast Europe. At the regional level, IGB will provide access to the gas transmission network for Bulgarian municipalities and regions that didn’t have an option for connectivity. The interconnector with Greece is an entirely new route for the transmission of natural gas to Europe and will give Bulgaria and the region access to supplies from new sources. The project will connect the country with the Southern Gas Corridor and has excellent synergy with other major energy projects such as TAP, TANAP, EastMed and the LNG terminal at Alexandroupolis.
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