Azerbaijan supplies Bulgaria with gas

Bulgaria's President Georgi Parvanov and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev have signed an agreement for the supply of one billion cubic meters of gas to Bulgaria. The memorandum of agreement is between the two states and their gas companies: Bulgargaz and GNCAR, Standard News informed.

Under the deal, Sofia and Baku will also study the option of bringing compressed Azeri gas by tankers to Black Sea ports, Bulgarian Economy and Energy Minister Traicho Traikov said after the signing ceremony.

He said Bulgaria might receive one billion cubic meters of Azeri gas per year but did not give a time frame, says Gulf Daily news.

Bulgaria does not have tankers and still needs to build a pipeline link to neighboring Greece to receive Azeri gas through the ITGI pipeline between Turkey, Greece and Italy.

Depa and Edison are building the Greek-Italian section of the ITGI pipeline, which according to officials is likely to be ready in 2012-2015.

The gas dispute between Russia and transit country Ukraine in January cut off supplies to Europe, leaving thousands of Bulgarians without heating in the depths of the winter and forced dozens of factories to shut down.