Bulgarian PM: Azerbaijani gas can be transported via Nea Mesimvria, Greece

Azerbaijani gas can be imported to Bulgaria via the Nea Mesimvria village, where the compressor station is located in Greece, Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said in an interview with Bulgarian media, Report informs.

“We have received a guarantee from Azerbaijan that this is technically possible. It is strange why this has not been done before,” Petkov said.

The prime minister also noted that the wholesale price of gas in Bulgaria has increased by 30 percent due to the inability to import as much gas as planned under the current agreement with Azerbaijan.

“We do a lot of work and succeed. Last night we completely changed the board of Bulgargaz to avoid wasting time,” he said.

The Bulgarian prime minister also admitted that the state company Bulgargaz made wrong decisions during the discussions of prices at stock exchanges.

On January 28, the management of the Bulgarian Energy Holding dismissed Nikolai Pavlov, Svetoslav Delchev, Diana Boneva, Ilian Dukov and Nikolai Donchev, members of Bulgargaz Board of Directors.

Earlier, Bulgargaz expressed hope that after the completion of the construction of the IGB interconnector, they will receive 1 billion cubic meters of gas a year from Azerbaijan, as stipulated in the contract. The IGB interconnector will join Bulgaria via Greece to the TAP project, which connects Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to Europe.