Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct.25
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
The decision of the Directorate-General (DG) for Competition of the European Commission on compatibility of the funds to be provided for the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) is expected to be adopted by late October, Teodora Georgieva, Executive Officer of ICGB AD (project company) on the Bulgarian side, told Trend.
“The decision on the compatibility of the benefits to be provided for the implementation of the project with the State Aid rules is a pre-condition for the approval of all of the measures related to the financing of the project, namely: state guarantee by Bulgaria in the amount of up to 110 million euros, 39 million euros from the European structural and investment funds (ESIF) designed for Bulgaria and the intergovernmental agreement between Bulgaria and Greece,” she said.
Georgieva noted that without the state aid clearance decision, the project company cannot utilize the above stated funds.
“Therefore, the state aid notification application and the successful completion of the procedure is crucial and is one of the key priorities for the company. The process is almost finalized and the Decision of DG Comp is expected by the end October 2018,” she added.
IGB is a gas pipeline, which will allow Bulgaria to receive Azerbaijani gas, in particular, the gas produced from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz 2 gas and condensate field. IGB is expected to be connected to TAP via which gas from the Shah Deniz field will be delivered to the European markets.
The initial capacity of IGB will be 3 billion cubic meters of gas.
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