On February 7, a protocol preceding a trilateral agreement on co-operation and use of Bourgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline was signed by representatives of Bulgaria, Russia and Greece in Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast city of Bourgas.

It has taken several years to reach this point, and there has been a keen contest among the partners over key aspects of the pipeline plan.

For Bulgaria, it is better to have one terminal to serve as many as possible oil pipelines, economic analyst Luchezar Bogdanov said in an interview with Focus news agency on February 5.

He was responding to reports that Russia had requested the ownership of the terminal of Bourgas port, the contact point for the pipeline.

He said that having one terminal was “market logic” and that it was better to continue to have one terminal, because in 10 years’ time another proposal could be made that could change the situation.

Bogdanov also raised the issue of environmental pollution, saying that the fewer oil pipelines that were built, the less the risk of pollution.

Asked which pipe projects would have a greater importance, that Bourgas-Alexandroupolis project or the pipeline project about which Bulgaria signed a deal with Macedonia last week, Bogdanov said that both projects were of major importance in the long term because of the difficulties around oil transportation via the Bosphorus and “obviously it makes sense in the long term view to embark on such projects”.

He said that the more important issue was how and under what conditions the benefits would be shared.

The cost of the Bourgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline has been estimated at $700 million. Its will be 286km long and its capacity is expected to be 600 000 to 800 000 barrels a day.

On February 1, Russian president Vladimir Putin told a news conference in Moscow that Bulgaria and Greece could lose the opportunity to become transit countries for oil from Russia and the Caspian Sea region to Europe if the countries did not accede to an agreement on the pipeline project.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said that it was possible that countries participating in the Energy Charter could be sanctioned if they prevented transportation of oil or gas from Russia to Europe, Russian news agency Novosty reported on February 5, according to Bulgarian-language agency Mediapool.

Lavrov said that in principle Moscow was not against the Energy Charter but was not satisfied with some of the ways it has been applied.

Russia signed the Energy Charter but it did not ratify it because Russia wants the document amended to create clearer regulations on relations among energy resource importers and consumers, as well as transit countries.

Fidanka Bacheva of CEE Bankwatch Network, an environmental group that monitors international financial institutions, told The Sofia Echo that the plans for the two oil pipelines from Bourgas, the related infrastructure and increased tanker traffic, would endanger the fragile ecology of the Black Sea.

Bacheva said that the two projects were unacceptable because they tied Bulgaria to the “energy of the past”. The group would prefer to see investments in renewable energy sources and energy efficiency instead of fossil fuel and nuclear power.