Bulgaria will start the construction of a gas link with Greece in March, the Bulgarian prime minister said on Tuesday. The construction has been delayed because of the many archeological sites that were discovered on the route of the interconnector, Boiko Borisov said in his address to the participants in an annual get-together of business leaders and top government officials in Sofia.
At the forum, energy minister Traicho Traikov said he hoped that in the near future the country will be able to start importing natural gas from Cyprus and Israel where large deposits have been discovered recently. This will help Sofia diversify its energy sources and reduce its dependence on Russian gas, the minister added.
Meanwhile, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov and his Cypriot counterpart Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis discussed the prospects for cooperation between the two countries in the energy sector.
"We are considering energy cooperation with Bulgaria within the context of the drilling for hydrocarbons the Republic of Cyprus has launched in its exclusive economic zone," state-run Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) quoted Kozakou-Marcoullis as saying. Cyprus's top diplomat met with Mladenov, National Assembly Deputy Chairman Georgi Pirinski and Economy Minister Traicho Traikov during a visit to Sofia on Monday.