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Alexander Nikolov hosted the event, which was attended by Prime Minister Kiril Petkov, Deputy Prime Minister Assen Vassilev, Director General of the European Commission’s DG DG Energy Jorgensen, energy ministers and representatives of the region.
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- We are also negotiating for larger deliveries from Azerbaijan
From June, Bulgaria, Greece, northern Macedonia, Turkey, Romania, Azerbaijan and Ukraine could start buying gas together in bulk to negotiate lower prices. This became clear after the meeting on Thursday in Sofia of the energy ministers of the seven countries.
The next meeting of the working group chaired by the European Commission will take place by 16 May. All decisions – on the use of infrastructure and the method of purchasing natural gas, must be ready no later than the end of May, said Energy Minister Alexander Nikolov.
Currently, short-term gas supply decisions are linked to quantities from Greece,
and long-term – total purchases from the seven countries. A day ago, it became clear that the possible sources are the United States and Egypt, from which to supply liquefied gas, as well as increasing volumes from Azerbaijan.
Asked whether he would agree with his Azerbaijani counterpart on increased gas supplies, Nikolov recalled the annex to the long-term contract with the AGSC consortium to withdraw the full volume by July 1st.
“What we are trying to do is minimize the negative effect of the annex. From then on, I do not think there will be any problem with long-term compliance with the contract. It is for the supply of 1 billion cubic meters of gas, and the price is determined on the basis of oil derivatives – fuel oil and gas oil, and their quotations on the Mediterranean Stock Exchange, “added the Minister.
He specified that from the point of view of diversification and security of supply for Bulgaria, the problem was until July 1. We are trying to find the right balance between solidarity, security and longevity of the contract and potentially additional capacities and volumes, Nikolov added. He added that common gas supplies for the whole region will be sought.
The system operators of Bulgaria, Romania and Greece will sign an agreement to increase the capacity to connect new green electricity capacities, Nikolov added.
According to him, in the Balkans we have always found an opportunity to argue, but in difficult times it was better to be strong and united to solve problems. Then we could be competitors again, to compete.
We see how energy is used as a weapon,
Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said at the opening of the meeting in Sofia, commenting on the suspension of deliveries by Gazprom. According to Petkov, however, the new terminals and interconnectors allow for a new energy map of the region.
And the only way to compensate for negative development was unification. And energy mixes and corridors could be optimized even better for greater cost efficiency.
Petkov was very happy that the meeting of energy ministers in Sofia was not only for inspections and discussions, but for the establishment of a permanent working group to redraw the regional map of energy.
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