Bulgaria’s acting government has accepted the offer of American energy provider Cheniere for the delivery of one cargo of liquified natural gas (LNG) to be unloaded in Turkey at a competitive price, as announced by the Minister of Energy, Rosen Hristov.
The cargo will cover about a third of the country’s consumption and, for the remaining part, the Minister mentioned the possibility of increasing the supply from Azerbaijan and that there is an interest shown by Turkish companies.
The current decision falls short of expectations as earlier in July, the outgoing government of Kiril Petkov proposed to sign a contract on the delivery of seven LNG cargo ships from the United States, in order to increase the energy security of the country and that would have filled around half of the missing quantities.
While early parliamentary elections are scheduled for the beginning of October, the acting Minister of Energy Rosen Hristov explained that it is too expensive to book LNG slots in Turkey and Greece.
“From now on, our efforts will be focused on concluding medium-term contracts to cover consumption during the upcoming winter period,” explained Mr Hristov.
Thus, gas supplies from pipelines (either from Turkey or Azerbaijan) are to be preferred.
