The natural gas interconnection pipeline between Bulgaria and Turkey, which is to allow the former to receive gas supplies from Azerbaijan, will be completed by 2014.

This has been promised by Bulgarian Economy, Energy, and Tourism Minister Delyan Dobrev, who spoke on BNR Saturday, after returning Friday from a state visit inAzerbaijan together with Bulgarian PM Boyko Borisov.

“We took an important step forward with the signing of a memorandum between the Bulgarian Energy Holding and the state company of Azerbaijan SOCAR, committing them to cooperate in order to realize the first Azerbaijani gas suppliesto Bulgaria in 2014,” Dobrev declared.

He noted the Bulgaria-Turkey gas interconnection will be crucial in that respect, and praised the results of the Bulgarian government’s visit in Azerbaijan.

“We discussed with the Azerbaijani energy minister all possible routes, including which will be the pipeline that will transit large quantities of natural gas from Azerbaijanas of 2018 because this is still unclear,” Dobrev added, apparently referring to the uncertain fate of the Nabucco gas pipeline project.

He did say there will be Southern Gas / Energy Corridor for Europe but noted that its route and concept are still unclear.

“We must succeed to build this interconnecting pipeline with Turkey because we can get no gas supplies without it. Prime Minister Borisov will seek assistance for it from the EU Council of Ministers because it can lead to diversification of supplies for Europe,” Dobrev argued.

Earlier this week, one of the six shareholders in Nabucco, Hungarian company MOL, said it wanted to sell its share, raising doubts about the future of the EU-sponsored project.

A newly-discovered natural gas deposit near Lovech in Northern Bulgaria contains 10 billion cubic meters of gas, Bulgaria’s Minister of Economy, Energy, and Tourism announced.

Traikov said that Bulgaria will soon be able to extract about 1 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year, or about one-third of its annual consumption.

He spoke Tuesday night without providing details about the deposit near Lovech but he apparently referred to an area around the village of Deventsi in central northern Bulgaria explored in the recent years by Direct Petroleum, a US-based company.

According to the estimates of the bidders, the deposit near Novi Pazar contains between 300 billion and 1 trillion cubic meters of shale gas. In Traikov’s words, Bulgaria’s shale gas deposits should be able to guarantee its domestic consumption of natural gas for the next 1000 years.

It is still unclear when the extraction of the mentioned natural and shale gas deposits in Bulgaria can be materialized. At present Bulgaria’s natural gas consumption is about 3 billion cubic meters per year, and 90% of that is imported from Russia. The rest comes from the development of the Kaliakra deposit in the Black Sea by UK company Melrose Resources.

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