The European Commission has approved a grant of 78 million euros for a project to expand the underground gas storage facility in Chiren, Bulgartransgaz has reported.

The project is among five approved by the EU for support under the Connecting Europe Facility. The expansion is in synergy with the LNG terminal near Alexandroupolis and other projects to improve interconnection with neighboring countries.

The goal is to increase gas storage capacity from 550 million m³ to 1 billion m³ by building 10 new production wells and 3 control wells. The daily capacity will increase from 3.82 million cubic meters to 10 million cubic meters, and the injection capacity from 3.2 million cubic meters to 8 million cubic meters.