Two agreements linked to the construction of the Haskovo-Komotini Bulgarian-Greek natural gas pipeline were expected to be signed in Thessaloniki on March 4 2010, Greek media said.

The headquarters of the company that will oversee the construction of the bilateral pipeline and its use will be in Sofia. State-owned Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH) will have a 50 per cent share in the company while the rest will go to the IGI Poseidon S.A. which is controlled by the Greek DEPA and Italian Edison energy companies.

The project also provides for the setting up of a trading company with its headquarters in Athens. BEH and DEPA will each have a 35 per cent share in the company while Edison will have 30 per cent.

The length of the pipeline will be 170km and it will transport natural gas to Bulgaria from Turkey via Greece. Another source is the Greek storage facility in Revitousa near Athens.

The new gas route linking Stara Zagora, Dimitrovgrad and Komotini is expected to reduce dependence on Russian gas supplies by 20 to 30 per cent, according to experts.

The project also provides for an extension of the pipeline with Romania and Hungary. This way, liquid gas could reach South Eastern Europe which would help achieve diversification of natural gas deliveries in the region as currently it depends on Russian deliveries from the Caspian region.

Following the natural gas conflict between Russia and Ukraine which left Bulgaria completely cut off from natural gas supplies for a week in January 2009, the European Commission said it will allocate 20 million euro for the Haskovo-Komotini pipeline project.

Under preliminary calculations, experts believe the total price tag for the project would be about 100 million to 120 million euro.