Bulgaria's energy regulator said it approved a proposal for a 0.67% quarterly reduction in the price of domestic natural gas in the fourth quarter of the year.
The regulator set the natural gas price in the fourth quarter at 728.34 levs ($481.8/372.4 euro) per 1,000 cubic metres, value added tax of 20% excluded, its chairman, Angel Semerdzhiev, told reporters in Sofia on Thursday.
Earlier this month, Bulgaria's gas monopoly Bulgargaz sought a 0.67% cut in domestic natural gas prices in the fourth quarter, explaining that its proposal reflects an 11% cut in gas delivery prices until the end of the year that Bulgaria negotiated with Russia's Gazprom last month.
Semerdzhiev said that he is optimistic about the outcome of talks between the Bulgarian government and Gazprom on future gas supplies, adding that he expects a further drop in the beginning of 2013.
Bulgaria imports almost all the natural gas it needs from Russia through a pipeline crossing the territories of Ukraine, Moldova and Romania.