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Victoria Mindova

The Greek and the Bulgarian Ministries of Energy scheduled a meeting in Sofia next week to discuss Burgas-Alexandroupolis project issues. The news was announced by the Deputy Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Change Ioannis Maniatis at the Forum on Investments in Energy and Incentives for Development. He stressed that the construction of the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline is of great importance for the Greek side and it is ready to cooperate completely with the Bulgarian authorities to dispel the doubts about the security of the project.

"Environment related studies in our country have been completed and they satisfy us in full. It now remains to discuss the obstacles that Bulgaria may impose on the project and to find a solution," said Ioannis Maniatis particularly for GRReporter. He said that this would be the third meeting of this type between the Greek and Bulgarian ministers for the past year and a half and finding solutions would be very important for the Greek energy market.

Another project that is concerning the two neighbouring countries, but there is a more optimistic outlook for its development, is ITGI, which according to Maniatis is in the most advance stage in comparison with the other initiatives on expanding the supply of natural gas. Providing natural gas from the Caspian Sea will help the countries in the project diversify the risk and protect themselves from Ukrainian attitudes, which caused the gas crisis two years ago.

Harry Sachinis, President and CEO of the Greek Public Gas Corporation DEPA also confirmed that the ITGI pipeline project has been strongly supported by both Bulgaria and Romania. Even at the last meeting of energy ministers from neighbouring countries, the Bulgarian Minister of Economy and Energy Traycho Traykov has even requested the project be accelerated and the first phase be completed in 2013 instead of 2014 as initially planned.

Harry Sachinis said that since the beginning of the year, demand for natural gas has increased by 20%. It is mainly due to the construction of new industrial electricity producing units supplied with natural gas. By 2020, DEPA expects the demand to rise by another 5.6% -7%.

An important part of the process of liberalising the energy market is the sale of the Greek Public Gas Corporation DEPA. Its CEO at the time made it clear that he would prefer the new owner who would win the "golden hen" of the Greek energy to be either a large company, recognised in the market for distribution of natural gas, or one that is active in the production and sale of natural gas. On the old continent, the strongest company in this field is Russia's Gazprom, but the President of the Greek gas company avoided mentioning a specific investor. All he said was that there was already interest from foreign investors. However, today's management of the gas company stressed that it would prefer the main shareholders’ package to remain in Greek hands.

The extra tax on trade in natural gas and electricity from renewable energy sources prevents new investors from entering the market thus dooming to failure the energy market liberalisation, said Rania Ekaterinari. She is the deputy CEO of the Public Power Corporation of Greece and has extensive experience in the sector of trade in fuels and energy internationally. She added that with the new high extra taxes, the Greek government has condemned the Public Power Corporation of Greece to remain a monopolist in the market. "The Public Power Corporation of Greece is not afraid and supports the market liberalisation," said the Deputy CEO of the Public Power Corporation of Greece.

"The negative rate of economic growth combined with the limited ability to raise funding from the domestic banking system, because of the debt crisis, have created a new economic reality to which  the Greek companies must adapt today," said Ekaterinari. In this line of thought, she stressed that energy production in Greece needs modernization