In early September, the citizens of the Black Sea city of Bourgas will vote in a referendum on the construction of the Bourgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline.
On July 5, the Bourgas municipal council scheduled a referendum on the pipeline for September 2. The referendum will be preceded by a information campaign by the Regional Development and Public Works Ministry. The council demanded that the results of the environmental impact assessment should be announced immediately by the ministry.
The pipeline will connect Bourgas with the Greek port of Alexandroupolis on the northern coast of the Aegean. Russian oil tankers will take on Russian oil in Bourgas and send it to Alexandroupolis. The 280km pipeline, with 166km passing through Bulgaria, is intended to bypass Turkey’s Bosphorous. The pipeline is due to be completed by the end of 2009. Costs are expected to reach 900 million euro. According to the agreement signed in March this year, equity in the project was divided up by the three states involved: Russia (51 per cent), Bulgaria (24.5 per cent) and Greece (24.5 per cent). The pipeline has a planned capacity of 35 million tons a year with the option of expanding to 50 million tons of oil. According to Deputy Regional Development and Public Works Minister Kalin Rogachev,. the agreement on the construction of the pipeline had already been signed and the referendum will not have any impact on its progress. Bulgaria has only signed a political agreement for administrative co-operation for the execution of the project and no one had said that Bulgaria’s environmental laws would be broken, Rogachev said, as quoted by Bulgarian-language news website mediapool. Although the pipeline has often been described by government officials as one of Bulgaria’s successes in economic co-operation, right-wing opposition parties claim, supported by ecologists, that the project is not economically and ecologically beneficial for Bulgaria. Bulgaria is expected to earn close to $35 million annually from transfer fees.
Bourgas was not the first city to ask its residents for their opinion on the pipeline. On June 18, the municipal council of Sozopol, a Black Sea resort town south of Bourgas, said that it would ask its residents to back their demand to redraw the plans for the pipeline. Councillors signed a petition addressed to President Georgi Purvanov, Parliament and the Cabinet. Councillors disagree with the plans for building a tanker unloading facility in Sozopol’s Vromos Bay, where the actual pipeline would start from. This facility will reduce costs for the company operating the pipeline as it would not pay port fees, but it would have a negative impact on tourism in the area, councillors said. The first people to raise their voices against the pipeline were the residents of Chernomorets village, part of Sozopol municipality. They asked for a local referendum on the issue.
The pipeline enjoys the same “warm” feelings in neighbouring Greece as well. On July 4, local authorities in the Greek region of Evros threatened to block the project because of environmental concerns. According to the governor of the region, as quoted by the Greek media, many citizens opposed the pipeline because they feared oil leaks.
While Bourgas and the other southern Black Sea towns are considering the Bourgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline, on July 4 Parliament approved the first reading of the convention for the construction of the Bourgas-Vlora oil pipeline. The pipeline will pass through Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania’s Vlora. The pipeline known as AMBO will be 870km long and investment in it is expected to reach 1.2 billion euro. Annual oil transit will reach 35 million tons. Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania signed the Bourgas-Vlora convention on January 31 and the completion date was set for 2011.
