Bulgaria, hard hit by a halt in Russian gas deliveries via Ukraine in January, said Wednesday it was preparing a new gas rationing plan for the industry and bracing for possible new cuts.
"We have no reasons to believe that the crisis is inevitable but there is a problem and we are preparing," Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov told the national radio.
He added that the ministry was to announce later Wednesday a new gas rationing plan for the industry to be imposed in case of new cuts in deliveries.
Gas-fired heating plants have already been warned they will have to switch to fuel residue in case of dwindling gas supplies, Dimitrov said.
The minister added that the government was taking the measures "not to scare people but to inform users in advance about what volumes (of gas) will be available to them" in case of crisis.
Ukraine's state energy company Naftogaz has promised to pay last month's supplies to Russia's gas giant OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS) before March 7, but Dimitrov said Wednesday there were "indications" that Ukraine might not be able to pay.
The chief executive of Bulgaria's state gas monopoly Bulgargaz, Dimitar Gogov, told the national radio that none of the three intermediary companies supplying gas to Bulgaria has informed of any potential risk of new cuts.
"But when something has happened once, the probability of it happening again is much higher," Gogov said.
Bulgaria was one of the worst hit countries by the Russia-Ukraine gas row in January, which led to Russian gas being cut to consumer countries in Europe for two weeks.
Sofia had then imposed gas rationing on 357 big companies to save gas for heating and households. Another 44 major companies were completely cut off and forced to shut down production.
The country is almost wholly dependent on Russian gas deliveries via Ukraine for its consumption and has no access to alternative gas routes or sources.
Amid the crisis, Sofia however managed to negotiate receiving gas from Greece and Gogov told a newspaper interview Wednesday that it can again pump as much as 2.0 million cubic meters of gas a day from its neighbor in case of trouble.
Bulgaria's sole underground gas storage facility at Chiren, to the northwest, was also holding more than 430 million cubic meters of gas that can serve the country for 100 days, he told the radio.