Gas Safety Net For Bulgaria

After Bulgaria was starved of gas earlier this year from Russia with the loss of millions to businesses, they now have a safety net to ensure another source. Egypt is the unlikely source and this was signed up today. Bulgaria now have a sigh of relief knowing that they will not now be totally reliant on Russia for supplies. This of course is after the horse had bolted for many businesses who had already folded because of this.

Bulgaria signed an agreement onSaturday to explore options of buying gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Egypt as part of its quest to ease its heavy dependence on Russian energy. Bulgaria, the country worst hit by the January cut-off in Russian gas supplies, has also signed an agreement with neighbouring Greece at the Sofia summit on linking the two countries' gas networks and possibly building an LNG terminal on the Greek Aegean coast. Earlier this year, Bulgaria and Balkan neighbour Romania agreed to link their gas networks and Sofia is now seeking a similar deal with Turkey. Sofia has previously said it was aiming for 1 billion cubic metres of Egyptian gas per year starting from 2011-2012. Bulgaria gets about 95-98 percent of its gas from Russia and the rest comes from its Galata offshore field in the Black Sea. Source www.guardian.co.uk