site.btaExperts Comment Whether Bulgaria Faces Second Gas Crisis after Halt of Supplies Back in 2009

Many Bulgarian experts commented Wednesday the consequences from the intention of Gazprom Export to discontinue gas supplies to Bulgaria as of April 27, announced late on the previous day. 

Speaking to BTA, the Executive Director of the Bulgarian Federation of Industrial Energy Consumers, Ivailo Naidenov, said that what is known at the moment is that Bulgaria "has some alternative sources and quantities of gas, but it is not clear whether these are outside the expected deliveries from Azerbaijan or whether the quantities of Azeri gas will be increased". 

Naidenov said that with the end of the heating season in this country, gas consumption will drop and Bulgaria will need lower quantities of the fuel. He noted the important factor of the price of the supplies from new sources, given that a big portion of the big enterprises do not have alternatives to gas, in particular plants that use it as input. 

Naidenov said further that it remains to be seen how this will impact electricity prices. He said that although in Bulgaria the price of electricity does not depend on natural gas, it does in Europe, so that "we import high electricity prices due to the related markets". 

Energy expert Vasko Nachev described as a "trump card" the fact that it is the end of the heating season when consumption of gas drops sharply. "If the stoppage had happened earlier, things would have looked much differently. We can cover up to 4 million cu m in the next 20-30 days. My expectations are that gas supplies to Bulgaria will be resumed much earlier than this, if they are physically halted at all," Nachev said, speaking to BTA. 

In Nachev words, "Russia does not intend to suspend gas supplies to this country over a long period of time because it does not stand to gain from such a step". 

Another energy expert, Valentin Kunev, who chairs the Balkan Black Sea Petroleum and Gas Association, told BTA that in such a situation it is possible to have "a number of arrangements with other countries". Kunev made an assumption that the consequences from the scenario of halted supplies have been coordinated with Greece, from whom Bulgaria could receive additional quantities of liquefied natural gas, and if possible, Azeri gas as well. 

The Chairman of the Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association (BICA), Vassil Velev, told BTA that the worst hit by the gas crisis will be companies from the glass-making sector, fertilizer producers, animal farming, bread making, and machine building. 

In Velev's words, "the useful move in the short term is payment according to the arrangements suggested by Gazprom which is in no way detrimental to this country, and extending the agreement with them until secure alternatives are found in the medium term". "Otherwise, chaos will ensue during which various market actors will try to take advantage of the situation, there will be insecurity, as well as commission fees to pay, and as the Energy Minister predicted before, the price of gas from the alternative sources will be 40 per cent higher," Velev said.

He went on to say that the Azerbaijani agreement is not exactly an alternative because Gazprom is present there as well as a big shareholder and an entity supplying gas to Azerbaijan "because Azerbaijan is a country who sells more gas than it extracts and the difference comes from Gazprom". 

The BICA Chairman said that "the EU cannot all together, now and immediately, forgo the Russian natural gas, doom the industry in the European community, and allow a plunge in people's living standards". "This is understood and acknowledged by the EU and I hope that such a decision for a mass suicide will be averted," Velev said. 

Reneta Kopandanova, Chief Secretary of the Bulgarian Chemical Industry Chamber, told BTA that the situation with the halted gas supplies is not good for the businesses in the sector. Kopandanova said that the worst hit companies will be those in the fertilizer sector. She said that one such company, Agropolychim, has alternatives to natural gas as it can supply ammonia as a half product in the production of fertilizers. 

In a Facebook post on Wednesday Sofia Mayor Yordanka Fandakova said that the necessary quantities of gas for the Sofia heating utility and the buses of the public transport company are ensured until the end of April and for May,  as she had been assured by the heads of Bulgartransgas and Bulgargas. 

Fandakova said that on an order of hers, the heating utility and the public transport company have developed crisis action plans to work in the event of reduced gas supplies and total stoppage of gas. "I hope that the need for the extreme working options will be averted," she said.