Forget about South Stream! Moscow /i.e. Putin/ ceased the project. Now let’s put it aside, in order to see the current situation, which is really dynamic. At the Brussels-held meeting of energy ministers, the inter-connector link between Bulgaria, Romania and Greece was declared a top priority, including the funding. The three states will build up a vertical gas corridor, alternative to South Stream, where 3 – 5 billion cubic meters of gas will flow per year. One of the sources is available and that is the Greek terminal for liquefied natural gas at Revithoussa, with a capacity of 5 billion cubic meters. The other source is the planned Trans-Adriatic gas pipeline, which will transfer Azeri gas as of 2019 from the Caspian Shah Deniz field to Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania and Italy. That is what things look like.

And yet, where is Bulgaria within that Balkan gas gambit? Gambit in chess means a debut, where one of the parties would sacrifice a figure and the other one either accepts it or not. This country has sacrificed the benefits /proven or not/ from the South Stream project, in favor of the European rules and the Third Energy Package. It looks like the sacrifice has been accepted and we are no longer alone in the fight for energy independence and diversification, as mentioned in the options above. However, that’s not all.

360 million cubic meters of gas are currently extracted in Bulgaria from small deposits, or 1/10 of the country’s annual needs. There have been proven storages of some 22 billion cubic meters of natural gas this year in deposits, situated to the South and to the North of the Central Balkan Range. The extraction is planned for the beginning of 2015, while in 2016 our own production is to reach 1.5 billion cubic meters. Thus Bulgaria will cover about 50 percent of its humble so far consumption of 3 billion cubic meters per year with own resources.

This year OMV has informed its shareholders on some 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas deposits in the Bulgarian aquatory of the Black Sea. If those deposits are proven, the OMV says that extraction can be kicked off even as early as 2017. Did PM Boyko Borissov mean that, when he said that someday Bulgaria might start to export gas…?

In 2012 the state granted a 35-yer license to the American Trans Atlantic Petroleum for the extraction of 10 billion cubic meters of gas in North Bulgaria that had to start as early as 2013. It didn’t, however, due to the “perplexed” Bulgarian MPs, who imposed an embargo de facto on the extraction of conventional gas, alongside the shale schizophrenia. In the meantime environmental Germany has lifted up the embargo on shale gas’ extraction. Why is that?

Liquefied gas is the third component of the gas puzzle. Due to the Russian pipe lobby this physical state of the gas is a taboo topic. It’s not that the gas in the pipeline is not liquefied… However, gas pipelines are strategic long-term facilities, worth dozens of billions. Yummy! One can refer to interconnectors as to a tactical diversification opportunity for relative energy independence. When there are liquefied natural gas terminals available, it can be practically distributed from sources across the globe at market /i.e. competitive/ prices. We mentioned the Revithoussa LNG Terminal. There are about 20 of those in Europe with an annual capacity of 210 billion cubic meters. At the same time the entire continent uses 150 billion per year! The construction of such a terminal at the Bulgarian segment of the Black Sea is useless for now, as Turkey wouldn’t allow tankers with liquefied gas to go through the Bosphorus. Petrol ones face no problems - it looks like the risk there is at a lower level. Russia exports liquefied gas, but not to Bulgaria. However, Kavala and Alexandroupoli at the Aegean Sea are only about 100 km away from the Bulgarian Border. The joint construction of such terminals there will be the same as if we have those at the Black Sea shore! Then gas price won’t be USD 400 for 1 m3, but it will be twice lower, with quantities guaranteed. Serbia, Hungary and Slovakia are also interested in such a development through Bulgaria. I think, we made it clear one way or another, what our position in this game is. Now all we have to do is to find someone, willing to play it for the greater good.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev