Bulgaria, Greece to Sign Investment on Gas Interconnector

Bulgaria and Greece's Energy Ministers are to sign on Thursday the investment agreement to build a gas interconnector that will help bring supplies from Azerbaijan to Bulgaria and further north.

The project has been in limbo for months after the signing, scheduled for July, was postponed, with Athens citing obstacles due to the political situation in the summer.

Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) will be managed by ICGB, a joint venture of the Bulgarian Energy Holding and IGI Poseidon (Greece). Its initial capacitz will be 3-5 billion cubic meters per year. 

Panos Skourletis, Greece's Energy Minister, will attend the ceremony at the Council of Ministers' building in Sofia, alongside Bulgarian counterpart Temenuzhka Petkova and Bulgarian Deputy PM Tomislav Donchev.

Bulgaria's Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has also been invited.

IGB is listed among the EU Commission's Projects of Common Interest (PCI), which means the Commission is firmly standing behind the project to boost security of supplies.

On a visit to Sofia in January, US Secretary of State John Kerry pledged to help kickstart the project, also negotiating EU funding in Brussels.

But disputes over the details also delayed the beginning this year.

IGB could potentially deliver gas to Bulgaria (and then, after building additional infrastructure, to Romania) from the Southern Gas Corridor, which will transport it from Azerbaijan to Italy via Turkey, Greece, and Albania and then under the Adriatic.