Russia is pressuring Bulgaria and Greece to sell their shares in the Bourgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline by attaching new conditions for financial responsibility in case the two countries fail to fulfil their quotas for the pipeline.

The three countries’ companies to take part in the project execution were in negotiations in the Greek capital of Athens with the consultancy company Paul Hastings, mediapool.bg reported.

On August 27, the Russian consortium of state-controlled companies Rosneft, Transneft and Gazprom Neft demanded the right to vote to depend on the quantities of oil provided by the parties.

In case the shareholders fail to provide enough oil, they would bear financial responsibility.

If such a clause is included when the international design company for the project is registered, Bulgaria will have to provide nearly 8.5 million tons of oil. It was still unclear at that stage how Bulgaria could provide that amount of oil, mediapool.bg said.

Russian companies offered to provide 51 per cent of the oil quantities and the Bulgarian and Greek companies to sell their shares to other oil companies.

Russia, so far, has also failed to guarantee the oil that it will have to provide, but in June 2007 president Putin asked Kazakhstan to provide 17 million tons of oil for the pipeline.