The future International Project Company (IPC), which would manage the oil pipeline Bourgas-Alexandroupolis would be registered as an off-shore company in the Netherlands, Regional Development Ministry announced on November 16. This was decided the day before in Athens between Bulgaria, Greece and Russia, mediapool.bg said.

The Russian companies Transneft, Rosneft and Gazprom Neft, owners of 51 per cent of the pipeline project, insisted on the registration as an off-shore. Other variants discussed were registrations in Luxembourg and Cyprus.

During his visit to Moscow earlier this month, Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov and Stefan Gounchev, chief of cabinet of the Regional Development and Public Works Minister Gagaouzov, signed a new joint protocol with the Russian partners in the project. It was agreed that the Russian partners would not make any claims on Bulgaria.

According to Gounchev, the protocol signed in Athens repeated the agreements reached in Moscow. The past half year, negotiations had been stuck because of Russian demands towards Bulgaria and Greece to either sell part their share in the project, or to secure oil against it.