While Bulgaria is paying Turkey for LNG, which does not exist, it has found more gas at its borders

The new gas discovery of Turkey in the Black Sea is unlikely to please Bulgarian politicians. On the one hand, the country also depends on fuel imports and wants to find deposits in the Black Sea. But so far only Turkey is doing this — at the very borders of the Bulgarian economic zone. On the other hand, the scandal over the 13-year contract between Botas and Bulgartransgaz continues in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian operator has to pay half a million dollars a day for the lease of capacities, while it does not use them for gas imports.

Turkish TPAO has discovered another gas field in the Black Sea. And again, right next to the economic zone of Bulgaria, which, like Turkey, depends on fuel imports.

"We have discovered 75 billion cubic meters of natural gas at the field. This amount will be enough for us for three and a half years to meet the needs of our homes," Turkish President Recep Erdogan said.

Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said that the field was discovered during exploratory drilling by the Abdulhamid Khan vessel.

"We inspected the work of the vessel, which conducted its first exploratory drilling in the Black Sea at the Goktepe-3 well 165 km from land. We have reached the final stage of drilling operations, which were started at a depth of 2,154 meters and advanced to about 3,500 meters," the minister said in a message on the social network X.

Earlier, Turkey announced the discovery of a large Sakarya field, production of which began in 2023. Together with the new discovery, Turkey's Black Sea gas reserves are now estimated at 785 billion cubic meters.

"In fact, we have already achieved a noticeable development in the Black Sea. The existing capacities and infrastructure allow us to easily develop new structures," Oguzhan Akyener, president of the Research Center for Energy Strategies and Policies of Turkey (TESPAM), told Daily Sabah.

So far, Turkey's daily production in the Black Sea is 9.5 million cubic meters per day (3.5 billion cubic meters per year). But in the next five years it is planned to increase to 15 billion cubic meters — 30% of the current consumption in the country. The new discovery will give an opportunity to further increase production.

The unpleasant moment for Bulgaria is that the country is also dependent on imports and plans to find its own reserves in the Black Sea. But so far, in practice, Turkey is doing this — right next to Bulgaria's economic zone in the Black Sea. Unlike the neighboring country, Bulgarian projects are going neither shakily nor smoothly and only this year they will drill the first exploration well on the Khan Asparukh block. Such plans are made by Israeli NewMed Energy and Austrian OMV, which has already begun the development of a large field in another neighboring state — in the Romanian sector of the Black Sea.

Bulgaria continues to say that the potential gas production in the Black Sea may amount to 20 billion cubic meters per year with consumption of 3-4 billion cubic meters. But the country is shaken by other gas news. In 2022, Bulgargaz did not switch to a new payment mechanism for Russian gas and Gazprom stopped deliveries." And in 2023, the operator of the Bulgratransgaz gas transmission system signed a 13-year contract with Turkish Botas to lease the capacities of LNG terminals and gas pipelines for the supply of alternative gas. The unpleasant side of the agreement turned out to be that Bulgarian companies do not use the route, but the operator is obliged to pay for it under the "download or pay" condition, regardless of the actual use.

Energy Minister Zhecho Stankov said that Bulgartransgaz is obliged to pay $ 550 thousand a day ($ 200 million a year) and can break the agreement only if it pays $ 2.2 billion in compensation.

According to BGNES with reference to the minister, negotiations on renegotiating the terms of the contract with Botas are continuing, but have not yet yielded results.

"This contract accumulates the cost of a service that we do not use,— said Zhecho Stankov. — We don't need it either today or in the next 13 years."

As EADaily reported, Bulgaria imports gas from neighboring countries. At the same time, part of the fuel is Russian, which is resold to the country by European traders.