“Bulgartransgaz EAD has developed specific projects to increase the capacity and to ensure a possibility of transporting additional natural gas quantities from south to north. The Vertical Gas Corridor will ensure energy security for Bulgaria and the wider Eastern European region by making the most of the existing infrastructure and building the necessary additional infrastructure,” said Vladimir Malinov, Executive Director of Bulgartransgaz, during his meeting with Geoffrey Pyatt, Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources at the U.S. Department of State. They discussed in Washington the importance of the Vertical Corridor initiative following the restatement of the Memorandum in January this year. The gas transmission operators of Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Ukraine and Moldova are all parties to the Memorandum. "There has been a clear upward trend in the LNG demand from reliable sources in recent years. The implementation of the corridor will meet the market's needs for transporting these additional quantities,” Malinov added.
Geoffrey Pyatt, Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources at the U.S. Department of State expressed wholehearted support for the implementation of the Vertical Gas Corridor. He added that the new infrastructure projects of Bulgartransgaz for capacity increase in the south-north direction need to be timely implemented and put into operation so as to ensure the transmission of the growing gas flows from Greece through Bulgaria and Romania with the possibility to reach Ukraine.
Bulgartransgaz is seeking partial grant funding for the necessary investments in order to implement the proposed projects in the shortest possible time and to keep the commercial interest in the route and increase the benefits for end users as well.
Geoffrey Pyatt stressed the importance of the projects Bulgartransgaz is working on to ensure energy security in the region, focusing on the expansion of the underground gas storage in Chiren. As Malinov said, Chiren UGS Expansion comes along the most large-scale projects in the sector and will contribute to enhancing the energy security in Europe. The daily gas withdrawal and injection capacities of the storage facility are expected to increase to 8-10 mcm/day. In the course of the discussion, Malinov also noted the successful partnership between Bulgartransgaz and the US companies Solar Turbines Europe, Honeywell and Emerson in the implementation of the Chiren UGS Expansion project.
They both shared the need for the projects to be completed within the set timeframe to ensure access to additional natural gas quantities from alternative sources for all users.
