Bulgaria eyes 0.5 Bcm/year at Greek LNG terminal as bid deadline extended

London — Bulgaria plans to take 0.5 Bcm/year of capacity in the planned floating LNG import facility at Alexandroupolis in northern Greece, according to a government decision, as the deadline for binding bids for capacity has again been extended.

The deadline for capacity bids in the planned 5.5 Bcm/year Alexandroupolis LNG was Monday, but the developer of the project Gastrade has now pushed the deadline back to March 20.

Greece already has one operating LNG import terminal at Revithoussa, which started operations in 2000 and expanded its capacity in 2018, but the government is supporting a second plant as part of efforts to become a regional gas hub.

Bulgaria's state-owned gas grid operator Bulgartransgaz has a 20% stake in Alexandroupolis LNG as part of Sofia's strategy of diversifying its gas import sources and routes.

But it will be state-owned gas importer Bulgargaz that will reserve the capacity.

"The decision of the Council of Ministers fixes the quantities of LNG that Bulgargaz will reserve from the terminal at 500 million cu m/year," the government said in a statement.

"The period for which the quantities are reserved is 10 years," it said in the statement, which was published ahead of the Gastrade decision to extend the deadline to March 20.

Gastrade, meanwhile, gave no explanation for the move, which is the second time the deadline for binding bids has been extended.

Originally, the deadline for bids was February 24.

In a short statement, Gastrade said only that the new deadline for submission of binding offers for capacity reservation was March 20 at 17.00 Greek time.

First phase

At the time of the first extension, Gastrade said it wanted to attract bidders that did not take part in the first, non-binding phase for expressions of interest in Alexandroupolis LNG capacity.

In the first, non-binding market test for Alexandroupolis LNG capacity, 20 companies submitted expressions of interest for a total of up to 12.2 Bcm/year of reserved regasification capacity.

That is well in excess of the technical capacity of the project, which is designed at 5.5 Bcm/year.

The terminal has attracted interest from major LNG producers and suppliers, both new and existing, including companies from the US, Israel, Qatar and Algeria, as well as from large international LNG traders, according to Gastrade.

Gastrade has said the project aims to provide a new gateway for gas supply to southeast European markets.

The FSRU will have a peak technical regasification and send-out capacity of 22.8 million cu m/d.

The tender process for the construction of the project is also underway, with a commercial start-up date planned for Q3 2022.

Bulgartransgaz in January finalized taking a 20% stake in Gastrade after Greece's DEPA also took a 20% stake in December.

LNG shipper Gaslog also has a 20% stake, while Romania's Romgaz is also eyeing a 20% stake.

Should the Romgaz stake be finalized, it would leave the final 20% owned by Gastrade founding shareholder Elmina Copelouzou.

The LNG facility is designed to work in tandem with the planned Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria, or IGB, which is to bring gas from Azerbaijan to southeastern Europe via the TANAP/TAP gas pipeline system from 2021.

The FSRU will be connected to the Greek gas transmission system through a 28 km pipeline that will allow the transportation of regasified LNG to the markets of Greece and the wider region, in particular Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, North Macedonia, Hungary and Ukraine, Gastrade said.