Bulgaria, Russia and Greece will agree on the construction of an oil pipeline connecting the port of Bourgas to the Greek Thessaloniki.

The new oil pipeline will be 300 km long and will have the capacity to transport 15 to 30 million tons of oil per year, Dnevnik daily reported.

It will cost more than 700 million euro, preliminary data showed. Construction will allow transfer of Russian oil directly to the Mediterranean Sea, by-passing the Bosporus Strait.

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and Black Sea Trade and Development Bank feature among the project sponsors.

Greek authorities were widening one of Thessaloniki’s oil terminals, Dnevnik said. It can be connected to an oil pipeline from Thessaloniki to Macedonian Skopje, finished in 2002. Through Serbia the pipeline could reach North Adriatic Sea, Dnevnik said.

Bulgaria, Russia and Greece already agreed on the construction of a long-awaited oil pipeline from Bourgas to another Greek port, Alexandroupolis. The project was being negotiated for nearly 10 years and the three countries will finally sign an agreement in March 2007.

Dnevnik said that ecologists, tour operators, hotel owners and fishermen in Bourgas were displeased that the city will turn into starting point for Bourgas-Alexandroupolis and Bourgas-Vlora oil pipelines.