Prime Minister Rumen Radev said Bulgaria has proposed a mutually beneficial arrangement with Turkiye as part of the efforts to suspend certain obligations under the gas supply agreement between Bulgargaz and the Turkish company BOTAS.
Speaking to journalists, Radev said the specific details of the agreement could not be disclosed because they are part of a confidential protocol between two commercial entities. However, he emphasized that the arrangement includes not only a temporary suspension period but also a significant reduction in the costs related to regasification and transmission services.
“I cannot reveal the specific parameters because this concerns confidentiality between two commercial companies. I can only say that, besides the 15-month freezing period, the protocol provides for a significant reduction in the price for regasification and transmission from BOTAS, which makes the route from Turkiye through Bulgaria much more competitive,” Radev said.
According to the prime minister, Bulgaria has major opportunities to strengthen its role as an energy hub, as gas supplies can enter the country through both Greece and Turkiye before reaching other markets in the region.
Radev also addressed the accumulated obligations of Bulgargaz to BOTAS, saying that the debt of around EUR 360 million has remained unpaid for more than two years. He explained that the new protocol includes a mechanism for settling these obligations without placing an additional burden on the state budget.
The prime minister again criticized previous governments, arguing that the agreement with BOTAS had not been used effectively after it was signed. According to him, instead of turning the contract into an opportunity for supply diversification and transit, it became a political issue.
“We asked Turkiye for a mutually beneficial partnership, not the other way around. There is serious potential for imports through both Greece and Turkiye, and in both cases the flows pass through Bulgaria. This gives us another competitive route with significant capacity,” Radev said.
He claimed that the BOTAS agreement was initially concluded at a time of uncertainty after the suspension of Russian gas deliveries, when Bulgaria faced a shortage of alternative supplies.
“The contract with BOTAS was signed because there was no gas at that moment. However, after that, the possibilities under this agreement were not developed, and instead the country returned to previous schemes for importing Russian gas through intermediaries, which was even more expensive,” the prime minister said.
Radev argued that the agreement had later been used as a political tool against him rather than as a mechanism to secure supplies for Bulgarian consumers and provide transit opportunities to neighboring countries.
The contract between Bulgargaz and BOTAS was signed on January 3, 2023. Under its terms, Bulgaria reserved daily capacity of 106.4 GWh at Turkish LNG regasification terminals and committed to payments of about BGN 1 million per day until 2035. Currently, Bulgargaz is not importing gas under the agreement, while its outstanding payments to BOTAS have grown to hundreds of millions of leva.
Ending the 13-year “take-or-pay” agreement could expose the Bulgarian company to potential compensation claims of nearly BGN 3 billion. In April 2024, the National Assembly tasked then-Energy Minister Vladimir Malinov with taking steps to renegotiate the deal.