Romania signs agreement with Bulgaria and Greece on natural gas network connection

On Wednesday, Sofia hosted a meeting on the construction of a gas corridor that will interconnect natural gas networks in Romania, Bulgaria and Greece, with a capacity of 3-5 billion cubic meters per year. Romania was represented by Mihai Albulescu, state secretary at the Ministry of Energy, Small and Medium Enterprises and Business Environment.

Vertical gas corridor would connect the gas networks of Bulgaria, Greece and Romania and would contribute to the diversification of gas supply. The agreement signed by Romania, Bulgaria and Greece on Wednesday on the connection of national gas networks put the bases of a project that will require a total investment of about 220 million and will be operational by 2018, according to Wall Street Journal.

“We are finally getting a new source of gas because until now we were totally reliant on one source – Russia” said Bulgaria’s Deputy Energy Minister Zhecho Stankov in a press conference. Last year in Romania most part of the natural gas was provided from domestic production.

The European Commission is ready to consider using EU funds to contribute to ‘better integration and robust energy system in these countries in overall EU energy’, recently said European Commission Vice President for Energy Union, Maros Sefcovic.

The agreement, signed by energy officials from the three countries, comes as the European Commission has sent, on Wednesday, a Statement of Objections to Gazprom arguing that that some of its business practices in Central and Eastern European gas markets (Bulgaria included) represents an abuse of its dominant market position breaking EU antitrust rules. According to the Commission’s press release on 22nd April, “on the basis of its investigation, the Commission’s preliminary view is that Gazprom is breaking EU antitrust rules by pursuing an overall strategy to partition Central and Eastern European gas markets, for example by reducing its customers’ ability to resell the gas cross-border. This may have enabled Gazprom to charge unfair prices in certain Member States. Gazprom may also have abused its dominant market position by making the supply of gas dependent on obtaining unrelated commitments from wholesalers concerning gas transport infrastructure”. Gazprom has 3 months to reply to the Statement of Objections and can also request an oral hearing to present its arguments.