The state-owned Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH), the recently formed mega structure in charge of the country’s top energy assets, has decided to withdraw from the Bourgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline project that should carry Russian oil via the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Bourgas and Greece's Alexandroupolis on the Aegean.

The decision follows a new strategy to pursue a more conservative investment policy amidst the global economic downturn. The pullout leaves state-run construction company Technoexportstroy Bulgaria’s sole representative in the project.Russia controls 50 per cent in the project company that will construct the pipeline, with Bulgaria and Greece holding 24.5 per cent each. The Bulgarian share was so far distributed 50:50 between BEH and Technoexportstroy, but now the holding company will sell its stake to the building firm for 2.9 million leva, the amount the energy firm has ploughed into the project so far.

BEH’s new investment policy involves participation in high-priority energy projects aimed at guaranteeing security of supplies, the company’s executive director Galina Tosheva said in a letter to Technoexportstroy, sources told Dnevnik. 

Earlier this year, BEH said the projects at the top of its agenda are building new gas links with Greece and Romania, the construction of a new gas storage facility near Galata cape, on Bulgaria's northern Black Sea coast, and the expansion of the existing facility in the northwestern village of Chiren.

Its other priorities include the liquefied natural gas (LNG) project near Alexandroupolis, the construction of a new coal capacity at Maritza East coal mines and the Belena nuclear power plant scheme on the Danube.