At the end of last week Russia’s energy giant Gazprom started the actual construction of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline after Russian President Vladimir Putin gave green light to that project. Turkish Stream will supply Turkey with nearly 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas via two gas pipes which are to cross the bottom of the Black Sea. Some of the gas quantities will later reach Central and Western Europe. The gas pipeline project is expected to be completed by 2020.

Let us remind that two years ago all politicians and energy experts were talking about another gas project that also had to cross the Black Sea – the South Stream gas pipeline project. It had to cross Bulgaria on its way to Central Europe. Bulgaria was lobbying openly for that project, because this country was hoping to collect reasonable revenues from the transit of Russian gas through its territory. The transit fees would have been quite substantial, taking into consideration the fact that according to the initial plans, the capacity of the suspended South Stream project would have been twice bigger than the Turkish stream and some 60 billion cubic meters of gas had to be transferred via that pipeline per year. South Stream had to be constructed by Gazprom itself at its own expense and own risk. However, the European Commission interfered in that case and accused Moscow of violating the European energy regulations. As a result Russia’s President Vladimir Putin announced the suspension of the South Stream project in 2014. However, Russia’s ambitions for a bigger share at the European gas market remained. Thus, the idea of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline project was born. Initially, that project had to be much larger. Anyway, Bulgaria is not part of the European gas map anymore, because none of the large-scale energy projects would cross its territory. This country missed the chance to transit and sell gas and oil to other countries, thus remaining in Europe’s periphery and far from the large battles for big revenues collected from gas distribution.

However, Bulgaria’s ambitions to become a regional gas distribution center can still be fulfilled to some extent. This is so, because one of the pipelines of the Turkish Stream project will transit gas for re-export to Europe and the shortest cut to Europe goes through Bulgaria. That is why the authorities should make some concrete steps aimed at constructing the gas inter-connector between Bulgaria and Turkey. The abovementioned gas link will enable Bulgaria to import gas for local consumption, as well as to re-export some quantities of gas. It is not clear yet whether that would happen through Premier Borissov’s favorite Balkan gas hub near Varna, or the export of gas to Europe through Romania would happen via the country’s gas transferring network. Anyway that problem must be solved with gas from the Turkish Stream. Bulgaria still continues the gas and oil prospecting in its water section of the Black Sea. If the results of the prospecting turn positive and some substantial quantities of gas and oil are found in the Black Sea, the construction of the gas distribution center near the coastal city of Varna would be quite necessary and reasonable.

Currently, official Sofia refrains from making any concrete comments and the gas topic has remained in the background. It was replaced by the topical and intriguing political events after the Presidential elections last year and the early Parliamentary elections last month which made Boyko Borissov a Prime Minister of this country for the third time.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov