Bulgaria’s Cabinet approved on November 24 2010 the setting up of a joint venture between Bulgarian Energy Holding and IGI Poseidon to build and operate the Bulgarian-Greek link in the Poseidon natural gas pipeline project.
 
The Poseidon project consists of a new offshore pipeline that will connect the Greek and Italian natural gas transportation systems.
 
IGI Poseidon S.A., incorporated in Greece, will develop, construct and operate the Poseidon Pipeline.
 
The Poseidon project will complete the natural gas corridor through Turkey, Greece and Italy (Interconnection Turkey Greece Italy "ITGI") allowing Italy and the rest of Europe to import natural gas from the Caspian Sea and the Middle East.

The Poseidon project is designed to import more than eight billion cubic metres a year of natural gas starting from 2015, thus contributing to security and diversification of European energy supply, according to IGI Poseidon’s website.
 
The Cabinet decision allows for another entity to be the legal successor to the Bulgarian Energy Holding in the joint venture at a later stage. This entity would be owned or controlled directly by the Bulgarian state.
 
As The Sofia Echo reported at the time, in June 2010, Bulgarian Economy Minister Traicho Traikov said that the Cabinet was committed to dismantling Bulgarian Energy Holding, the state-owned umbrella holding set up to manage state-owned assets in the energy sector. 

"The holding will cease to exist. It is clear that there is a synergy between some of the companies in the holding, which should be used both administratively and operationally," Traikov told Bulgarian National Radio.
 
The Bulgarian gas link to Greece is seen as a consequence of the shock that hit the country during the early 2009 natural gas supply crisis caused by a dispute between Russia and Ukraine. Bulgaria is effectively exclusively dependent on Russian natural gas.
 
The European Commission has agreed to grant 45 million euro to Bulgaria through the European Energy Recovery Programme to build the link with Greece.
 
According to Dnevnik, the 168.5km gas route linking Dimitrovgrad, Haskovo and Komotini is valued at a total 117 million euro, with Sofia and Athens to provide 36 million euro each to the project.
 
Separately, on November 25 2010 Bulgarian National Television said that Traikov would visit the country’s Chiren Natural Gas Storage facility to check up whether the facility was ready for the winter season.
 
The inspection is part of a series of visits to energy sites in the country ahead of winter, the report said. In October, Traikov visited hydro-electric and nuclear power energy generation facilities.