Natural gas prices in Bulgaria will go down in the fall of 2010 as a result of extraction from three new deposits discovered by UK-based company Melrose resources. The three new natural gas deposits – Kaliakra, Kavarna, and Karvana East – are located in the very northeast of Bulgaria, in the Black Sea off the Kaliakra Cape. The discovery of the new deposits was announced Wednesday by Bulgaria’s Economy Minister Traicho Traikov together with the CEO of Melrose David Archer and UK Ambassador to Bulgaria Steve Williams.
Archer has pointed out that the new deposits are a real commercial discovery, and that the company will start laying pipes for the extracting of the natural gas in August. The price of the natural gas will be negotiated between Melrose and the Bulgarian government. However, the UK company has made it clear that it will be a lot under USD 300 per 1000 cubic meters of gas, which is the price that the Bulgarian government is currently trying to get from Gazprom, the country’s only natural gas supplier. “Our own production will reduce the average price of natural gas in Bulgaria. This will be in addition to the reduction of the price of the Russian natural gas that we may achieve in our talks with Gazprom. The natural gas from these new deposits will be 5 percent-10 percent cheaper than the price that we will request from Russia,” explained Bulgaria’s Economy Minister Traikov. The three new deposits discovered by Melrose contain over 3 billion cubic meters of natural gas which will guarantee 20 percent of Bulgaria’s annual consumption (20 percent = 500 million cubic meters) over a period of 6 years.
