IGB Key Agreements Signed in Sofia

The joint executive directors of ICGB, the company behind the planned 3bn m³/yr Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) pipeline, signed key agreements June 29 to start investments and construction activity.

Once built, IGB should let Bulgaria access regasified LNG and Azeri gas via Greece. Bulgaria was badly affected when its main supplier Gazprom halted all cross-Ukraine flows for three weeks in Jan.2009. 

Teodora Georgieva and Konstantinos Karagiannakos took part in the fifth high-level Cesec meeting in Sofia during which they signed the documents, said ICGB June 29. Their signing was witnessed by Bulgarian energy minister Temenuzhka Petkova and her Greek counterpart Georgios Stathakis. 

The documents signed included an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) and term sheet for any future negotiations; agreements for cooperation with the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and also with Greek gas grid Desfa; a memo of understanding (MoU) for securing preferential loan financing by using Bulgaria’s state guarantee; and a joint declaration by ICGB shareholders confirming a commitment for the project’s development and their “irreversible commitment” for readiness to start construction. The latter supplements a Final Investment Decision in the project taken in December 2015.

At the June 29 signing too, Bulgaria and Greece’s energy regulators announced they agreed last month to seek an EU exemption for the new ‘IGB’ pipeline from mandatory third-party access. Issuing the final exemption decision will allow ICGB to apply to be licensed as an independent transmission operator; it will also make securing financing much easier.

Also signed was a MoU between Bulgarian state energy holding BEH and the European Investment Bank, expected to release €110mn  of EIB loans, based on Bulgaria’s state guarantee.

The 182km-long IGB gas pipeline will link Desfa’s system at Komotini and with the Bulgarian national gas grid at Stara Zagora, with up to 3bn m³/yr capacity when flowing from Greece to Bulgaria.  It is designed to be increased later to up to 5bn m³/yr, and also to enable physical reverse flow (from Bulgaria to Greece) with the additional installation of a compressor station.

TAP CEO Luca Schieppati (on left), alongside  ICGB executive directors  Teodora Georgieva and Konstantinos Karagiannakos.  Credit for this photo and the banner photo: ICGB