"Botash" and "Bulgargaz" must renegotiate the terms of the current contract in the next 15 months, announced Prime Minister Rumen Radev.
Energy expert Yavor Kuyumdzhiev commented on the program "Bulgaria Sutra" that the main reason for "Bulgargaz"'s losses for 2025 is the contract with "Botash".
According to him, for more than 3 years of the contract's validity, 4 or 5 ships have been unloaded under it - about 10% of the possible capacity has been used.
"The contract may work, but under different market conditions. The idea that some kind of freeze is happening is positive," Kuyumdzhiev told Bulgaria ON AIR.
Yesterday Radev announced that we owe 360 million dollars to "Botaş".
"We have a signed contract that is valid. We haven't paid for two years now. One hypothesis is that they admit that we don't pay and continue not to pay. The other option is to forgive our payments for the next 15 months. It's as if the 15-month contract is not valid. I don't know which of the two options works, but I highly doubt, having worked with Turkish companies for years, that they will make a discount for nothing. We have to give them another 2.5 billion euros," Kuyumdzhiev said.
He noted that we have been a member of the European Union (EU) for almost 20 years and there are very strict rules for trading in electricity and natural gas, which we must comply with in order to avoid mistakes.
"From January 1, 2027, pipeline gas from Russia will stop. This is the European Commission's directive. There will be a fairly large hole, because of which countries such as Moldova, Ukraine, Slovakia, Serbia, Bosnia, Greece will experience a gas shortage," predicted Kuyumdzhiev, adding that in Europe a large part of natural gas will remain Russian.