Bulgaria has been warned by Russia that a halt in deliveries of gas was imminent, Economy Minister Petar Dimitrov said on June 4, as quoted by Dnevnik daily. Moscow expects Kiev to miss its deadline for gas payments on June 7 and is preparing to shutdown its pumps on the border with Ukraine.

Bulgaria receives gas from transit pipelines passing through Ukraine and would be affected by the decision, which would have little impact on the Bulgarian economy, Dimitrov said.

Current daily consumption is 3.4-3.8 million cu m and Bulgaria can cover that in the short term from its storage facility in Chiren. Furthermore, Bulgaria has agreements in place with Greece and Turkey to import up to 2.4 million cu m and one million cu m, respectively, but Sofia would not draw on those agreements unless the deliveries are halted for more than two months, Dimitrov said.

His statement came just hours after Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said that there was no danger of a gas cut-off. Stanishev said that a task force was ready to deal with the crisis.

Bulgaria had prior warning in May, when Stanishev was told by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin that Ukraine was consistently late in paying the amounts it owed.

"We are much better prepared to deal with such crisis this time around, as we already have the experience from the past," Stanishev said.

Bulgaria was the country affected worst by the Russian-Ukrainian gas pricing dispute in January, when Russia cut off all gas deliveries through pipelines on Ukrainian soil. Since then, Sofia put in place agreements with neighbouring Turkey and Greece to ease its full dependence on supplies of Russian gas.