Natural gas

Ljubljana – The government has drafted legislative changes under which drivers of motor vehicles powered by natural gas will be exempt from paying excise duties until the end of 2025. The government says this pursues Slovenia’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in transport.

The first Romanian gas molecule in the Black Sea will be drilled this year by the Black Sea Oil&Gas company from the Aurora perimeter, and from the Neptune Deep area it will probably happen in 2025, Energy Minister Virgil Popescu said on Monday evening on private B1 TV broadcaster.

Turkey will invest 780 million Turkish liras (around $111 million) to build a subsea gas production facility, and a 155-kilometer-long pipeline connecting to a new onshore gas processing facility in Filyos, in the Zonguldak province along Turkey's western Black Sea coast, according to an environmental impact assessment application report for this three-phased integrated project.

One-fifth of the pipeline capacity of the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) can be used to transport hydrogen to Europe without the need for further investments, Elshad Nasirov, vice president for investment and marketing at SOCAR, said during a virtual event late Tuesday.

Turkey will start using gas from the Sakarya Gas Field in the Black Sea in the first quarter of 2023, government sources told Anadolu Agency on Feb. 11. 

Bulgaria's state gas company Bulgartransgaz has finalized a deal to take 20% of Greek company Gastrade, which is developing a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility off the city of Alexandroupoli, Gastrade said on Thursday.

The deal is part of Bulgaria's strategy to diversify and to decrease its dependence on Russian gas.

An agreement between Greece and Bulgaria concerning the IGB natural gas pipeline project (Gas Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria) was tabled in the Greek Parliament on Tuesday.

The agreement includes mutual commitments for the construction of the gas pipeline and for the transportation of gas after the project has been completed.

The Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) has reached a plateau of its 16 billion cubic meters (bcm) annual capacity, the CEO of the company running the pipeline said on Jan. 14. 

Greece's state-controlled gas utility DEPA announced on Thursday that Greece started receiving natural gas from the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) after the completion of its construction in December.

DEPA signed a 25-year gas supply contract with TAP in 2013 for the supply of natural gas from the Shah Deniz field in Azerbaijan.

Natural gas inflow to Turkey's gas network saw a year-on-year increase of around 6.38 percent to 50 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2020, according to data from the Turkish Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAŞ).

In 2019, around 47 bcm of natural gas was carried through the Turkish natural gas system.