Bulgaria struggled to adapt to the gas shortage Thursday as a total cut in Russian deliveries, on which it is entirely dependent for its natural gas needs, ran into a third day.
Supplies to large-scale gas-fired industries were rationed. Seventy-two major consumers, mainly in the chemical sector, were completely cut off while another 153 received reduced volumes of gas, Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov told national radio.
The measure triggered complaints by the Confederation of Industrialists and Employers that companies would "lose competitiveness in a period of international crisis," and their members were losing as much as EUR250 million a day.
But Dimitrov said it was necessary in order to save part of Bulgaria's 600 million cubic meters of gas stocks for heating in households, hospitals, schools and kindergartens, as temperatures across the country dropped well below freezing.
Gas-fired central heating plants, which supply a fourth of the country's population, had significantly lowered pressure and were preparing to switch either partly or fully to oil residue. As a result, people were rushing to buy electric heating appliances, with large chain-stores scrambling to feed booming demand.
Many hospitals put off planned operations and increased their stocks of first-aid materials to be able to address emergencies. At the Sheinovo maternity hospital in downtown Sofia, women were grouped by ten into rooms to warm themselves on a single electric radiator. Seventy-five schools, including 21 in Sofia were closed till Friday as temperatures in classrooms dropped below the threshold of minus 18 degrees Celsius.
The government promised heating would go back to normal as more and more heating plants switched to oil but people already complained of higher pollution in the air. It also appealed to users to save on both gas and electricity, fearing a grid overload and resulting power outages.
Meanwhile, Sofia reduced street lighting by 50% and cut heating in public transportation, except in early morning and evening rush hours.
Bulgaria is one of the few European countries without any other means of securing gas apart from the pipeline through Ukraine, and has only one underground gas storage, which can satisfy about 30% of its total gas needs of 12 mcm/day for a period of three months.
A project to feed Bulgaria with gas from Azerbaijan through a 70-kilometer link between northern Greece and the southeastern town of Haskovo was long postponed for lack of money, but the current crisis has brought it to light again.
Bulgaria is also exploring the possibility of receiving gas from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan through the same pipeline, while another project is to bring liquefied natural gas from Egypt and Qatar at a Greek port terminal.
Premier Sergey Stanishev received assurances Wednesday from his Czech counterpart Mirek Topolanek, whose country currently holds the E.U. presidency, that Bulgaria could count on E.U. money to link its gas transmission system to those of Greece and Romania, a government statement said.
Bulgaria has also declared its readiness to join both the Russian-Italian South Stream project channeling Russian gas under the Black Sea and the E.U. flagship Nabucco pipeline to bring Caspian gas to Europe via Turkey and the Balkans.