Russia and Turkey already signed the long-postponed agreement for the construction of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline project. Meanwhile, the Bulgarian National Radio informed, based on reliable sources, that the results of gas and oil drilling in the Bulgarian section of the Black Sea would show that the quantities of gas and petrol are not enough for future extraction. The idea of the Bulgarian authorities to construct a gas hub at Bulgaria's Black Sea coast may not be fulfilled against the backdrop of this hot news. This is due to the reason that the gas quantities would be merely insufficient for such a large-scale project. Secondly, Turkey also voiced ambitions to become a regional supplier of gas, but unlike Bulgaria that country has something to offer to its clients. The Bulgarian idea about the construction of the Balkan gas distribution center dates back to 2014, right after the failure of the South Stream project, which had to supply Europe with Russian gas transited through the Black Sea bottom and Bulgaria. This country relied a lot on that gas project, in order to guarantee revenues for its state budget. Later, official Sofia decided that it can secure enough gas quantities from different countries and regions - Russia, Greece, the Caspian Sea, own gas deposits, Iran and Turkey. It had the ambition to sell large quantities of gas to clients from Eastern and Central Europe. The European Union finally promised to support Bulgaria's idea about the construction of the Balkan gas hub and as a result, this country started to develop the future gas hub project and look for potential investors, because the construction of that project was estimated roughly at nearly EUR 2 billion. Meanwhile, Bulgaria was encouraged by the news about the existence of large gas quantities in the Black Sea section of its northern neighbor Romania and started to do its own gas prospecting. Bulgaria was hoping to find enough gas quantities and Premier Boyko Borissov even talked about quantities which would satisfy this country's gas needs for at least twenty odd years. Unfortunately, those ambitions and expectations turned quite unrealistic.

However, the Bulgarian authorities perhaps did not rule out completely such a negative scenario, because they have been making great efforts towards the construction of the gas interconnectors with neighboring countries - the interconnections with Greece, Turkey, Romania and Serbia, which would allow the country to transit gas. Highest progress has been registered in the construction of Bulgaria-Greece interconnector. The interconnector between Bulgaria and Romania will start functioning when those two countries overcome the technical difficulties related to the construction of the gas pipes across the bottom of the Danube River. The construction of the gas interconnection between Bulgaria and Turkey has been also progressing. At the end of the day, it seems that Bulgaria has plan B to complete the ambitious and large-scale gas hub project. Time will show how long it will take this country to fulfill the Balkan hub project and whether that project would turn profitable, because there is permanent tendency in Europe pointing to decreased consumption of gas.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov