BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 30. The Solidarity Ring could transport up to 5-9.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year, Trend reports with reference to Hungarian FGSZ, which was one of the signatories of the memorandum of understanding signed April 25 in Sofia on this initiative.
"The MoU supports the realization of the Solidarity Ring transmission corridor – the joint initiative of Bulgartransgaz, Transgaz, FGSZ, Eustream aiming to offer additional natural gas transmission capacities on the TSOs’ networks. In a short-time and with incremental capacity improvements to the existing infrastructure, this truly cross-border initiative could transport up to 5-9.5 bcm/y of gas from Azerbaijan to Eastern, Central and Western Europe via Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia," said the company.
Slovakian Ministry of Economy told Trend that the MoU does not include any contractual arrangements and as such does not represent a "contract".
"The aim of the MoU is to promote and encourage cooperation of gas transmission system operators from Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria in order to ensure diversified supply of additional gas volumes to the European Union utilising the capacities of the STRING project promoted by the respective TSOs," said the ministry.
A signing ceremony of the "Memorandum of Understanding for encouraging cooperation among Bulgartransgaz (Bulgaria), Transgaz (Romania), FGSZ (Hungary), Eustream (Slovakia) and the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR)" was held in Sofia April 25.
The Memorandum of Understanding sets out directions of cooperation between SOCAR and four distribution system operators for the supply of additional gas from Azerbaijan to Europe. The additional gas will be supplied through the upgraded transmission network systems of Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia called the "Solidarity Ring".
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