A final market test for the prospective IGB (Greek-Bulgarian Interconnector), entailing the submission of binding bids by gas traders for the allocation of pipeline capacity, will take place this coming autumn, officials agreed at a meeting in Sofia today involving the participation of energy minister Giorgos Stathakis and his Bulgarian counterpart Temenuzhka Petkova.

EU funding for the IGB project has been ensured through respective National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) programs, Teodora Georgieva and Konstantinos Karayannakos, the executive officers of ICGB, the consortium established to develop the IGB project, informed the meeting’s participants while also stressing that major progress has been made over the past two years.

The project’s licensing procedure is at an advanced stage and awaiting pending regulatory decisions, the ICGB officials informed.

Stathakis and Petkova also discussed the prospective floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) in Alexandroupoli, northeastern Greece.

The IGB and Alexandroupoli FSRU will be designed to complement each other while the development of these two projects promises to create a competitive market that will have a positive impact on regional natural gas price levels, the Greek energy ministry noted in a statement.

The productive cooperation achieved between Greece and Bulgaria in the energy sector promises to ensure natural gas supply diversification in southeast Europe, the ministry’s announcement stressed.

The two ministers pledged to further enhance the mutually beneficial Greek-Bulgarian cooperation in the energy sector.

Officials at the meeting agreed that the Alexandroupoli FSRU’s completion will need to coincide with the commercial launch of the IGB project, scheduled for early 2020.