US financial institutions like the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), EXIM Bank, the export credit agency of the United States and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), a member of the World Bank Group have shown interest in funding the expansion of the underground gas storage facility in Chiren, Bulgaria. These talks were held by the Executive Director of the natural gas transmission and storage system operator Bulgartransgaz, Vladimir Malinov while visiting Washington.
The project is co-funded by the Connecting Europe Facility and provides for the doubling of the capacity of the only storage facility located in Bulgaria. The volume of the active gas will increase up to 1 billion cubic metres (bcm) and the daily injection and withdrawal capacity will reach 8-10 million cubic metres/day.
Mr Malinov underlined how the project is considered a priority for the European Union since it is of major importance for the increase in the diversification and security of gas supplies thanks to the growth of the share of liquefied natural gas in the energy mix in accordance with the RePowerEU Plan.
“The expansion of the gas storage facility is in full synergy with the project for the construction of the LNG terminal in Alexandroupolis, Greece,” he added.
