This interconnector will transform the energy map of the region, Bulgaria's outgoing Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said at the ceremony marking the completion of the construction the Greece-Bulgaria gas interconnector which took place at one of the gas stations along the pipeline in Komotini, Greece, reports BTA.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Azerbaijani Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov also attended the ceremony.
Petkov expressed his conviction that the project will strengthen the energy connectivity between the two countries.
"By receiving Azeri gas in the next few weeks, Bulgaria achieves true diversification and puts an end to the Russian energy monopoly," Petkov pointed out.
According to him, July 8 will go down in the history of Bulgarian-Greek relations. "It will go down in the memories of our contemporaries as a symbol of our efforts to achieve political, economical and energy independence, a symbol of our values and geopolitical choice," the Bulgarian PM said.
"I feel proud that I headed a government that managed to complete in six months this project that has been in talks for years," he added.
Petkov thanked Mitsotakis for his cooperation for the completion of the gas pipeline which, in his opinion, represents a new type of "geopolitical friendship".
Mitsotakis stressed that today is a very important moment for Komotini, Greece and Bulgaria, pointing out that the commissioning of the interconector is yet another push for the common European goal of achieving energy diversification.
The Greece-Bulgaria interconnector links the natural gas transmission networks of the two neighboring countries, thus providing access to the Southern Gas Corridor and a range of new gas sources. It will carry gas from Azerbaijan via the Trans Adriatic Pipeline and from other sources via a planned liquefied natural gas terminal at Alexandroupolis, in northern Greece. The gas pipeline is 182 km long, of which 151 km in Bulgaria and 31 km in Greece, with a design capacity of up to 3 billion cu m/year, which may be increased to 5 billion cu m/year if there is market demand. It runs from Komotini (northeastern Greece) via Kurdjali, Haskovo and Dimitrovgrad to Stara Zagora (southeastern Bulgaria).
It has a capacity to carry 3 billion cubic metres of gas annually, which can be increased to up to 5.5 billion cu m at a later stage.
A memorandum of understanding for the project was signed back in 2009 and a joint company, ICGB, was registered in 2011. The initial plan was to commission the pipeline in December 2014.
News item picked by BTA to be promoted and published by AGERPRES with no text editing, as per the agencies' cooperation agreement.
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