Bulgarian Prime Minister Kirill Petkov expects the start of supplies of Azerbaijani gas via the new Bulgaria-Greece interconnector gas pipeline (Interconnector Greece - Bulgaria - IGB) in the summer.

APA-Economics reports quoting TASS that Kirill Petkov said this at a briefing in Veliko Tarnovo.

"I will visit Baku this week to confirm the volume of supplies," he said.

According to him, after the launch of the IGB, Bulgaria will receive $ 1 billion a year.

"I expect that in July-August, Bulgaria will receive one billion cubic meters of gas at a price several times lower than the current market price."

According to Kirill Petkov, negotiations on a long-term contract for the supply of liquefied natural gas to the United States are underway.

"We have not finalized the issue of US gas. We continue to think about what are the best long-term contracts. We are trying to create a mixture of liquefied and Azerbaijani gas. ", - added the Prime Minister.

It should be noted that due to the postponement of the commissioning of the Greek-Bulgarian gas pipeline (the last date of commissioning - July 2022) (to be commissioned in late 2020), Azerbaijani gas is temporarily supplied to Bulgaria at the Greek border (Kula). -Sidirocastro) is transported by the existing connecting line, which limits the volume of transportation (Bulgaria can not accept the volumes of gas under the contract - ed.).

The annual capacity of the IGB pipeline is 3 billion.

cubic meters, in the future this figure will reach 5 billion.

cubic meters can be delivered.

It is expected that starting from September this year, Azerbaijani gas will be transported to Bulgaria via the pipeline.

It should be noted that the Bulgarian company Bulgargaz has signed a $ 1 billion-a-year agreement with the Shah Deniz consortium within the Shah Deniz-2 project.

signed a contract for the transportation of cubic meters of gas.

Azerbaijan will start exporting gas to Europe via the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) on December 31, 2020.

The pipeline runs through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy.