Transgaz SA has awarded the construction rights for the Tuzla-Podisor gas pipeline to a Turkish company.
The 188.46-mile (303.3-kilometer) gas carrier will connect the Neptune Deep block with another pipeline that will link Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, called the BRUA pipeline.
Kalyon Insaat Sanayi Ve Ticaret Anonim Sirketi has won the construction contract worth about $546 million (€500 million), the Romanian state-owned company said in a press release on Friday.
“Being a project of strategic importance for the economic and social development of the country, the Romanian government and the rest of the public institutions and authorities support this project through all the steps taken and will continue to support all the others investments aimed at strategic and sustainable development. of the national natural gas transport infrastructure, increasing Romania’s role in the regional, European and international energy sector,” Transgaz CEO Ion Sterian said in the announcement.
The Tuzla-Podisor pipeline will help transport 529.72 billion cubic feet (15 billion cubic meters) of natural gas from terminals in Turkey and Greece to Romania and the Caspian Sea region, he said.
“The operation of the gas pipeline is important in the context of an expected increase in the demand for natural gas consumption in the coming years, given the policies of decarbonization, that is, the transition of power plants from coal to gas, and also taking into account the completion of investments in the industrial and energy sectors and investment in the development and expansion of the NTS to allow the connection of all localities to the gas infrastructure”, added Sterian.
As part of the European Commission’s Projects of Common Interest, the pipeline has secured $93 million (€85 million) in funding from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
The award of the construction contract comes three months after the capacity reservation agreements between OMV-Petrom SA, Romgaz SA and Transgaz were signed.
BRUA pipeline
The Tuzla-Podisor pipeline is Transgaz’s most important gas infrastructure project after the BRUA and Ungheni-Chisinaugas pipelines, Sterian said.
The BRUA pipeline is part of efforts to diversify Europe’s gas sources and, like the Tuzla-Podisor project, has been financed by the European Union-affiliated EBRD as a project of common EU interest. “It would allow access to future major gas infrastructure projects such as TAP [Trans-Adriatic Pipeline]gas sources from central European gas hubs and possible gas transports from Black Sea fields,” the EBRD says on its website.
The first phase was completed in 2020.
It stretches for about 1,318 kilometers (818.97 miles) and goes from Bulgaria to Austria via Romania and Hungary.
Supply network of five countries
Transgaz is also part of a pact signed in April between Azerbaijan and EU members Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia for wider gas distribution in the 27-member bloc. The memorandum of understanding for the so-called Ring of Solidarity initiative paves the way for gas transfers from the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan through existing infrastructure, said press releases from separate press of the parties to the agreement on April 24.
The supplies would be delivered through pipeline networks of Bulgaria’s state-owned Bulgartransgaz EAD, Hungary’s FGSZ Ltd, Slovakia’s Transgaz and Eustream, also controlled by the government.
Azerbaijan plans to increase gas exports to Europe to 423.78 billion cubic feet (12 billion cubic meters) this year, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said at the signing ceremony in Bulgaria, according to a transcript on Azerbaijan’s presidential website.
The agreement signed during a meeting between Aliyev and his Bulgarian counterpart Rumen Radev follows a 2022 treaty between the EU and Baku to increase oil and gas shipments to the region. The memorandum of understanding on a strategic partnership in the field of energy approved on July 18, 2022 includes a commitment to double the capacity of the Southern Gas Corridor to at least 706.29 billion cubic feet (20 billion cubic meters ) in annual transfers to the EU by 2027, according to an announcement of the agreement by the European Commission.
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