Bulgaria will launch in August the construction of the natural gas pipeline connection to Romania, said Bulgarian Economy and Energy Minister Delyan Dobrev, quoted by Novinite.

The Interconnector pipeline, which will cross the Danube at Giurgiu - Ruse, is developed by the company Bulgartransgaz in cooperation with Romanian Transgaz.

Bulgaria plans to build connections with three other neighbouring countries, Turkey, Greece and Serbia.

After the January 2009 gas war between Russia and Ukraine, which has cut supplies to Bulgaria for three weeks, leaving it without gas in the middle of winter, Sofia decided to create natural gas network connections to its neighbors.

The Bulgarian Minister said his country will use EU funding opportunities for gas connection to Turkey. The European Commission has already approved 9 million in co-financing for the Bulgaria-Romania gas interconnection and EUR 45 million for the Bulgaria-Greece gas interconnection, plus some more EUR 2.5 million for feasibility studies for the gas interconnection Bulgaria- Serbia.

In February 2011, the European Council decided that each EU country should have at least two sources of natural gas and electricity by 2014, so as to avoid a similar crisis between Russia and Ukraine.

Ioana Toader, ioana.toader@romania-insider.com