More than 15 months after the agreement for the construction of the Bourgas-Alexandropoulis oil pipeline was signed between Bulgaria, Russia and Greece, Bulgaria's Environment Minister Djevdet Chakurov said in a report that pumping crude oil into the two oil pipelines planned for construction there - Bourgas-Alexandropoulis and Bourgas-Vlora - from the Gulf of Bourgas carried a high risk for the environment.

Chakurov presented the report at President Geogri Purvanov's consultative council on national security, which was convened last week to discuss Bulgaria's planned energy projects, Bulgarian-language daily Dnevnik reported on June 30.

The Ministry of Environment and Water Affairs (MOEW) proposed an environmental assessment to be done on both the master plan of the territory where the pipelines would be built and the proposals how to load and store the crude. The two pipelines are projected to pump a combined 60 million tons of crude a year when at full capacity.

An initiative committee was formed in Bourgas against the construction of the pipelines and the technology that would be used for the pumping the oil into the pipes, while national environmental non-governmental organisations and citizens also supported the opposition.

Local referendums in Bourgas and the resort town of Sozopol earlier this year rejected the proposals to build the pipelines, but in both cases turnout was below the required 50 per cent threshold and their results were void.

According to the Environmental Protection Act, the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works had to formally notify MOEW about the project after the agreement between Bulgaria, Russia and Greece was signed at the end of March 2007. However, the Regional Development Ministry was yet to do so, Dnevnik said.