Bulgaria has abandoned plans to sell its stake in a planned trans-Balkan oil pipeline aimed at bypassing the congested Bosporus Straits, a senior Bulgarian energy official said yesterday.
After years of delays, Russia, Greece and Bulgaria agreed to build a 280-kilometer pipeline from Bulgaria’s Black Sea port of Burgas to Greece’s Alexandroupolis on the Aegean Sea in March, with Moscow keeping the majority stake of 51 percent.
European Union newcomer Bulgaria has been considering selling part or all of its 24.5 percent stake to US oil major Chevron and Kazakhstan’s state energy company KazMunaiGas.
Lyubomir Denchev, chief executive director of gas monopoly Bulgargaz Holding which holds half of Bulgaria’s 24.5 percent stake, said a sale was no longer an option.
“We will not decrease our stake in the pipeline,” Denchev told Reuters in an interview. “But together with all companies involved we will look into ways to secure oil supplies for the pipeline. Chevron and KazMunaiGas are involved in these talks.”
Kazakhstan said last week it was willing to use the new route to take its oil to the Mediterranean, avoiding the bottlenecked Turkish waters, Bulgarian media reported.
Chevron sees the new pipeline, which will have an annual capacity of 35 million tons or 700,000 barrels per day, as a possible expansion of Chevron-led Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which takes oil from the Caspian to the Black Sea.
Denchev said both oil companies had expressed interest to acquire a stake in the pipeline, estimated to cost 950 million euros, but the Balkan country has decided to offer them capacity rather than ownership. “Our position is that we can offer them capacity to transport their oil through the pipeline. We are not discussing participation,” he said.
The Russian partners in the project include oil producers Rosneft and Gazprom Neft and crude oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, while the Greek ones are Hellenic Petroleum, the Latsis Group and Petroleum Gas, owned by Russia’s Gazprom.
The three countries hope to set up a project company by the end of the year and launch construction in 2008, but new conditions raised by Russia might delay the plan.
Russia has requested Athens and Sofia to secure oil supplies proportional to their stakes if they want to have a say in the new company that will run the pipeline, Sofia officials said.
If Russia was to secure the entire crude oil for the project, then all decisions in the joint company would be taken by simple 51 percent majority, Moscow has demanded.