A week ago Deputy Prime Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva cautioned Bulgaria may be affected by a gas crisis similar to the 2009 crisis, when due to complications in the relations between Moscow and Kiev, the Russian gas supply to the country via Ukraine was cut off in the middle of winter. This week, these apprehensions were corroborated by Minister of Economy and Energy Vassil Shtonov. The very fact that it is an interim government, appointed for the space of 2-3 months with the principal task of paving the way to early elections and not of dealing with any strategic issues, speaks for itself.

More than 90 percent of gas consumed in Bulgaria is Russian and is transited via Ukraine and it is true that, as Minister Shtonov warned, even if the supply is not cut off entirely but only reduced, the country would still find itself in dire straits. That is the reason why the authorities are taking urgent steps to ward off a possible gas crisis. Talks are being held with Greece, a country Bulgaria already has agreements with for obtaining gas in the event of a crisis. This is but a palliative measure because if a crisis were to break out Greece itself would be experiencing a gas shortage, but also because its price is higher as it comes from liquefied natural gas terminals. A future alternative that is more propitious is the delivery of gas from Azerbaijan along what is known as the Southern gas corridor. Bulgaria already has a contract with Azerbaijan for importing an annual 1 billion cubic meters from the Shah Denniz gas deposit as of 2020. However, the construction of the gas pipeline that would make this possible was started only last week, and the interconnectors with Turkey and Greece that go with it have not been built yet. The Azeri gas alternative is not an immediate one, but Sofia has been making efforts to speed up the process – last week a memorandum was signed between the Azeri state company SOKAR and Bulgartransgas, by force of which Bulgaria should start importing gas amounting to 200-300 million cubic meters annually from Azerbaijan, as of 2016. When large amounts of gas start flowing along the southern gas corridor, then Bulgaria would even be able to export gas to northern Europe via Romania and Serbia and even to Ukraine itself, a country that now transits the Russian gas to Bulgaria.

Bulgartransgas forecasts indicate that next year the country will be extracting 800 million cubic meters of its own gas, and in 2016 – 1.3 billion, or around one third of the domestic consumption at a price 30 percent lower than the price of Russian gas.

The prospects of diversifying gas supplies in the medium term may seem optimistic, yet the only real alternative to gas supplies from Russia at this time is the more expensive gas via Greece and the relatively small amounts at the gas storage facility in Chiren. Any gas crisis, combined with an economic crisis this coming winter would paint a bleak picture for Bulgaria.

English version: Milena Daynova