site.btaProgressive Bulgaria Floor Leader: "Serious Economic Breakthrough"

The agreed freezing of the contract with BOTAS is a serious breakthrough from an economic point of view for Bulgaria as said by the Progressive Bulgaria Floor Leader Petar Vitanov to journalists in Parliament on Tuesday. 

Following the meeting of Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, Bulgaria's state-owned gas supplier Bulgargaz and BOTAS, Turkiye's state-owned energy company signed a protocol to freeze the contract between them for 15 months, during which only the Bulgarian side will pay for the capacity used with improved conditions, the press service of the Council of Ministers reported on Monday.

In a response to the opposition's questions about why this contract is being frozen now, if it was so profitable for Bulgaria, Vitanov explained that the contract was concluded under completely different circumstances, in a completely different international environment, when it was said that Russian gas would no longer be available anywhere. "When this contract was concluded, there were preliminary agreements with Hungary and Serbia. The following governments destroyed them, the following governments did not want to politically change the parameters of this contract in order to use it as political chewing gum and personally attack Rumen Radev. It's that simple," Vitanov said.

The agreement in question was signed on January 3, 2023. Under the contract, the Bulgarian side booked capacity of 106.4GWh/day on the Turkish LNG regasification terminals and agreed to pay for this BGN 1 million (EUR 512,000) daily for a period ending in 2035. At present, Bulgargaz does not import gas under the agreement with BOTAS, and in early May its arrears to the Turkish company approximated BGN 300 million. If the 13-year take-or-pay agreement is rescinded, the Bulgarian company will be liable for close to BGN 3 billion in damages. By a resolution passed on April 19, 2024, the Bulgarian National Assembly assigned then-energy minister Vladimir Malinov to take action for re-negotiating the agreement.