Bulgaria is expanding an underground gas storage site to guard
against any gas supply cuts from Russian gas monopoly Gazprom. The
expansion is expected to nearly double the capacity of the storage from
550 million cubic metres to one billion cubic metres of gas.
Bulgaria plans to almost double the capacity of the Chiren storage at
a total cost of more than €200 million in a part EU-funded project,
aimed at boosting the Balkans’ energy security.
“The doubling of Chiren’s capacity is linked to the persistent
ambition of Bulgaria to have Europe and its neighbours to support its
wish to establish a ‘European gas hub’ in Bulgaria,” Peter Poptchev, a
long-time Bulgarian ambassador-at-large for energy security, told New
Europe on October 22, adding that any claim to be able to establish a
regional gas hub should rely on at least one billion cubic metre
underground storage facility. “The value of an enlarged storage for
national energy security and gas security of supply is undeniable,”
Poptchev noted.
The Bulgarian government has said it is working with neighbours
Greece, Romania, Turkey and Serbia to ensure in future the country is no
longer completely reliant on Russian gas.
Poptchev said the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) is potentially
growing in importance in regard to all this because the gas hub in
Bulgaria “cannot be fed on Russian gas only – regardless whether through
Ukraine, or through a revived, reduced South Stream”.
Gas conflicts between Russia and Ukraine in 2006 and 2009 led Russia
to push for the South Stream, and now the Turkish Stream, bypassing
Ukraine. The EU is also pushing with its own diversifications efforts,
striving to reduce its reliance on Gazprom.
The potential gas hub in Bulgaria has to have access to large volumes
of alternative gas. The development of Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz II field
is expected to lead to the development of the Southern Gas Corridor,
which will see gas piped through the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP),
Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) and Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) to
Europe. TAP can easily connect to the IGB when the pipe is ready.
Moreover, Poptchev said the dispatch Eastern Mediterranean gas from
Cyprus and Israel is could be “accelerated” to Europe for commercial
reasons – to preempt exports from Egypt’s giant Zohr field.
At the official ceremony in Vratsa on October 20 launching a new
exploitation drill, which is expected to set the start of a process of
modernisation of Bulgaria’s Chiren gas depot, the country’s energy
minister, Temenuzhka Petkova, referred to another gas project on
Bulgaria’s territory – the Romania-Bulgaria Interconnector. “I very much
hope we will be able congratulate one another at the beginning of next
year on the first interconnector of our country that will be between
Bulgaria and Romania,” Petkova noted.
She said gas transmission along the interconnector would begin the
moment it is ready. She said Bulgaria is holding negotiations with
Romania and the latter has committed to building a compressor station on
its territory. Petkova said Bucharest has included this compressor
station in Romanian Transgaz investment plan, so “I hope it will become a
fact. This will give us the opportunity for a reverse [flow]
connection, which is highly important for this project”.
http://neurope.eu/article/fearing-russian-gas-cuts-bulgaria-goes-underground/