"SOCAR Balkans": Expediency of investing in Bulgaria's gas distributing sector to be known in October

SOCAR will meet with contractors and consultants on the feasibility study of Bulgaria’s gas distributing sector, SOCAR Balkans CEO Murad Heydarov told Report.

According to him, SOCAR was planning to complete the feasibility study in the gas distributing sector of Bulgaria until the second quarter of 2019, but some aspects required special attention and the company got the report only last week.

"We were planning to complete the results in the end of the second quarter, but there was the need to clarify some points on current dynamics in European market, including Bulgaria’s energy market. We asked the contractor and consultant to pay extra attention to some points of the study, therefore, the process was delayed. We got the report last week. SOCAR specialists are currently analyzing the report. There is a need for a meeting with consultant to clarify some points. The meeting has been set to early October. After that we’ll be ready to make a decision on expediency of investing in Bulgaria’s gas distributing sector," he said.

On January 15, 2018, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev came to an agreement on studying the issue of Bulgaria's gasification by SOCAR.

Bulgaria hopes to get Azerbaijani gas through the IGB pipeline, which will be connected to TAP. The initial capacity of the IGB pipeline will be 3 billion cubic meters.