OREANDA-NEWS. On November 08, 2007 at the Gazprom Headquarters, Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee met with Peter Dimitrov, Economy and Energy Minister of the Republic of Bulgaria, reported the press-centre of Gazprom.

The parties discussed issues related to further development of the Russian-Bulgarian cooperation in the oil and gas sector. Particularly the parties addressed the cooperation prospects within the Bourgas - Alexandroupolis and South Stream projects.

Reference:
Russian natural gas supplies were first launched to Bulgaria in 1974. Over 2006 Bulgaria received a total of 3,2 bcm of Russian gas from Gazprom export. At present Gazprom is the only gas exporter to Bulgaria.

Natural gas is transited by Gazprom via Bulgaria to Turkey, Greece and Macedonia.

In December 2006 the existing Transit Contact between Gazprom export and Bulgargaz was prolonged from 2010 to 2030. The parties signed a set of documents defining the mechanism and terms of switching to cash payments for Russian natural gas transit via the territory of Bulgaria. 

The South Stream is a system of gas pipelines that will integrate Russia and Europe via the Black Sea offshore area. The total length of the Black sea section of the gas pipeline will be some 900 km, the maximum depth will exceed 2000 m.