(MENAFN- AzerNews)
It is time for the friendship between Bulgaria and Azerbaijan to
become a bridge for more significant energy diversification,
Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said in an exclusive
interview with Trend, Azernews reports.
Talking about the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB), which is
aimed at transporting Azerbaijani gas to Bulgaria's gas the prime
minister said that it is 99 percent complete.
“For 12 years during the previous government, the IGB project
hasn't been finished, it was delayed. I am very proud to have led
the government that managed to complete this project in six months.
In the next weeks, the IGB will be fully operating. It is finished
on 99 percent and in the next half of the year, the IGB will be
fully operating. We're looking at a few remaining activities that
absolutely need to be completed prior to commercial launch to make
sure everything is working safely and properly and that we've kept
the highest industry standards,” Petkov explained.
He pointed out that the EPC contractor AVAX needs to proceed in
a prompt manner with the remaining activities for the integration
and testing of the SCADA system.
“The rest is mostly under the jurisdiction of the Bulgarian and
Greek institutions – a number of administrative procedures that
have to be completed so that we can get the project's equivalent of
Act 16. The usual deadlines here can take about 3 months but we
boosted Bulgaria a pre-alignment process with all institutions
proactively asking for their green light for ensuring IGB's
commercial start. There is an active and dedicated political and
institutional support to limit the estimated timeline,” said the
prime minister.
Petkov went on to add that in Bulgaria there's already an
established working group with representatives of all relevant
institutions that's set to work on ways to optimize the procedural
deadlines.
“The IGB project is of immense national and regional importance.
I even had weekly calls on the IGB progress with prime minister
Kiriakos Mitsotakis on the progress – this is to show you the level
of commitment of both governments to support the efforts and
measures for the IGB to reach operational readiness. In an
increasingly interconnected world, energy security challenges are
complex and often require a coordinated regional approach. Bulgaria
has been actively working to increase the potential of regional
cooperation by promoting the completion of the missing energy
infrastructure and ensuring the security of energy supplies in
South East Europe. This is the road to energy independence, for
Bulgaria and for Southern and South-East Europe. It will radically
change the level of dependency of our country,” he added.
Petkov noted that early on, the Bulgarian government understood
the importance of gas independence and energy security on a local,
regional and European level.
“Bulgaria has gone from 95 percent dependency to 0, and we
embarked on a fast course of securing gas deliveries for Bulgarian
citizens and businesses. In order to decrease our energy
dependency, I traveled to Baku and my meeting with President Ilham
Aliev, who was inclined to help us get additional quantity via
Turkey, is very much appreciated. During my visit, with President
Ilham Aliyev we discussed the possibility of additional Azerbaijani
gas supplies to Bulgaria and Azerbaijan's political readiness to
support Bulgaria. However, further development of the gas
infrastructure and consolidating cooperation among countries in the
region is important for the guarantying future security of supply
and diversification,” said the prime minister.
Petkov pointed out that there is a mutual wish to expand the
bilateral economic cooperation.
“Azerbaijan is an important energy partner of Bulgaria. But we
have also found many common economic opportunities in the fields of
agriculture, chemical fertilizers, construction, defense industry,
and IT. With a view to the common challenges, it is more important
than ever to continue building on the active high-level political
dialogue between our countries. And I am very glad that Bulgaria
will soon open an honorary consulate in Azerbaijan. It is time for
the friendship between our two countries to become a bridge for
future strategic economic projects and more significant energy
diversification,” Kiril Petkov concluded.
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