Bulgaria-Romania gas pipeline to open in August

(World Bank, CC BY-NC-ND)

The gas interconnector will help energy diversification in the two Balkan countries. It is of key importance for Bulgaria, in particular, which is almost entirely dependent on Russia for gas and is struggling to diversify its energy supply. After years of delays, in December 2015 Bulgaria and Greece signed an investment agreement to build a pipeline, which will carry gas from Azerbaijan to Romania and Hungary with an initial annual capacity of 3 billion cubic meters (bcm).

Hubau signed a contract with the gas operators of the two countries – Transgaz and Bulgartransgaz –  to develop the remaining section of the pipeline, which crosses under the Danube river, with a cost of USD5.205m.

The gas link between the Bulgarian city of Ruse and Giurgiu in Romania has a total length of 25 km, 15.4 km of which are in Bulgaria, the rest is in Romania, including the 2.1 km crossing under the Danube.

The pipeline was initially due to be ready by 2013 and fully operational by 2014, but its completion has been delayed several times owing to technical problems with the construction of the underwater section.

The 2.1 km-long remaining section of the pipeline, which crosses under the Danube river, will have to be finished in 119 days and will cost EUR4.577m. 

„The completion of the interconnector between Bulgaria and Romania opens a new page in the Bulgarian energy sector,” Bulgarian Energy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova said at the signing ceremony in Sofia. She noted that she hoped the first interconnector in Bulgaria’s history will be operation within four months.

After the completion of the compressor station in the city of Podisor, Romania will be able to deliver 1.5 bcm of gas to Bulgaria, the head of Trasgaz, Grigore Tarsar, said.

Construction is to start in October 2016. Bulgaria’s Energy Minister said that „things are moving in the right direction” with the Bulgaria-Greece interconnector, as requests for deliveries have exceeded the initial capacity of the pipeline.

Petkova added that Bulgaria is also considering participating in a project to construct a liquid natural gas terminal near the northern Greek town of Alexandroupoulis.

Romania is interested in the creation of an efficient gas network in Central and Eastern Europe in order to lessen its dependence on Russian energy. It produces about 11 bcm of gas per year, covering about 75 per cent of its annual needs.

So far, only one pipeline connects Romania to Hungary, a 109 km long route that can transit 4.4 bcm of natural gas per year and is part of the larger New European Transmission System, which is designed to unite Central and Southeastern Europe prime natural gas transmission networks. The total cost of the pipeline was around EUR68m.

In 2015, a new pipeline was inaugurated connecting Iasi, in eastern Romania, with Ungheni in Moldova. But this 45 km pipeline can transport gas only from Romania to Moldova.

Romania’s gas transporter Transgaz is trying to contract loans and will invest its profits in building the Romanian section of a gas pipeline that will run from Bulgaria to Austria. The company needs to finance 60 percent of the construction costs of EUR270m. The value of the whole project is EUR450m, some EUR179m of which will come from the EU.

The EU agreed in January to the European Commission’s proposal to invest EUR217m euros in 15 trans-European energy infrastructure projects. The interconnector that links the gas networks of Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Austria will bring natural gas from the Caspian area to Central Europe.

In February 2011, the European Council decided that each EU member state should have at least two sources of gas and electricity by 2014 to avoid repeating the scenario some member nations encountered following the Russian-Ukrainian gas crisis.

(World Bank, CC BY-NC-ND)

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