BOTAŞ is waiving fees for Bulgargaz, for now

Bulgargaz has not paid the fees due under its contract with BOTAŞ for six months now, but it seems that the Turkish gas trading company has made an issue out of this either. This became clear from the words of Acting Energy Minister Vladimir Malinov said in an interview with BNT.

He described this news as good and explained that it was one of the steps in the negotiation process.

For this purpose, there has been an agreement at the political level and an "understanding from my Turkish colleague," in the words of the minister. However, it was not clear what this political agreement was and what Bulgaria had to give up in order to get this benevolent stance from BOTAŞ.

Despite expectations that the contract renegotiation will be completed by the summer, talks between the two companies are still ongoing.

Bulgargaz has hired a Swiss law firm to analyze the consequences if the desired result in the negotiations is not achieved, which is the likelihood of terminating the contract."

According to Malinov, the implementation of the contract should continue under different parameters that are consistent with the current reality.

A proposal has been made to reduce the capacity and the fee, and to divide the fee into fixed and variable components. The variable one means that costs are to be paid only when using the service.

Turkey's initial reaction was not positive, but I believe that step by step we will achieve a positive result," the minister added.

Translated by Tzvetozar Vincent Iolov