Bulgargaz: Bulgaria to increase imports of Azerbaijani gas from October

Bulgaria's energy regulator said it has approved a 36.2% increase of the wholesale natural gas price as of October following a request by Bulgargaz, the Balkan country's main gas provider and public supplier, Report informs, citing Reuters.

Natural gas prices have soared in Europe and in the United States this year, pushing up fuel bills, adding to inflationary pressures and threatening to dent consumer confidence.

Low storage inventories, high demand for gas in Asia, less Russian and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply to Europe than usual, high carbon prices and outages have led to the price spike.

Bulgargaz' CEO Nikolay Pavlov said the price for Bulgarian industrial consumers would still be some 26%-30% less than prices on the European gas hubs, as the company secures its gas mix under a hybrid contract with Russia's Gazprom and an oil-indexed contract with Azerbaijan's SOCAR.

Bulgaria imports about 3 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas per year. Pavlov said the country will be increasing the imports of Azeri gas from October to mitigate the impact of surging global gas prices.

The country has been tapping only a fraction of its contract to import 1 bcm of gas per year from Azerbaijan, as the pipeline through which the gas should be shipped to Bulgaria is still under construction and is expected to become operational next July. read more

Since January, Bulgaria has imported some 225 mcm of Azerbajani gas through another gas pipeline link with Greece, or about one fourth of its contract. This amount is expected to rise to one third as of October.

The IGB is designed to transport blue fuel from Shah Deniz 2 to Bulgaria. Through this pipeline, which will join TAP, Bulgaria will import 1 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year from Azerbaijan. Thus, the state company Bulgargaz EAD has signed a contract with the Shah Deniz consortium to purchase this amount of gas from the Shah Deniz-2 field. Azerbaijan will be able to meet 25-30% of Bulgaria's gas needs.