Greece, Bulgaria Consider Oil Pipeline Project

Greece and Bulgaria will consider reviving plans for an oil pipeline project from the Greek port of Alexandroupolis to Bulgaria’s Black Sea port of Burgas, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said.

• Bulgaria has been looking to build a 300 km trans-Balkan oil pipeline to secure non-Russian crude oil supplies for its only oil refinery on the Black Sea.
• The pipeline would offer Bulgaria alternative supply sources and a “safer, faster and cheaper” way to transfer the fuel, with oil tankers bypassing the now congested Bosphorus Strait, Mitsotakis said.
• With Moscow having cut gas supplies to Bulgaria in the wake of the war in Ukraine, Greece has offered gas through its sole LNG terminal at Revithoussa west of Athens.
• The two countries also agreed that Greek power producers will be able to store gas in Bulgaria while Bulgarian companies could use Revithoussa, Mitsotakis said.
• Greece wants to become a key European transit route for gas traveling to the Balkan region through the Mediterranean Sea and further to the north thanks to new gas infrastructure under development.