December 21 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's gas transmission system operator Bulgartransgaz said on Friday that it has decided to launch a tender for the construction of a new 484 km gas pipeline from compressor station Nova Provadia, which will be located some 50 km away from the Black Sea coast city of Varna, to the border with Serbia.
The project has an estimated value of 2.29 billion levs ($1.3 billion/1.2 billion euro), VAT excluded, according to data published by the energy ministry last month.
The deadline for submitting offers is February 15, Bulgartransgaz said on its website.
The decision is to be published by the Public Procurement Agency.
The new gas infrastructure is planned to transfer Russian gas from TurkStream gas pipeline to Europe.
Earlier on Friday, Bulgartransgaz launched the binding phase of the open season procedure for booking capacity for incremental capacity from the border with Turkey to the border with Serbia and said that it will build the new 484 km gas pipeline depending on the results.Phase 3 will run from December 21 until January 31.
Currently, Bulgaria imports almost all the natural gas it needs from Russia via a pipeline crossing Ukraine, Moldova and Romania.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)