The United States will continue to support the Interconnector Greece Bulgaria (IGB) project, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in his remarks on “The U.S. and Europe: Strengthening Western Alliances”.
“The United States will continue to support European infrastructure projects, such as LNG-receiving facilities in Poland and the Interconnector Greece Bulgaria pipeline, to ensure that no country from outside Europe’s Energy Union can use its resources or its position in the global energy market to extort other nations,” he said.
Tillerson pointed out that enhancing European energy security by ensuring access to affordable, reliable, diverse, and secure supplies of energy is fundamental to national security objectives.
“The United States is liberalizing rules governing the export of liquefied natural gas and US-produced crude, and we’re eager to work with European allies to ensure the development of needed infrastructure like import terminals and interconnecting pipelines to promote the diversity of supply to Europe,” added the US Secretary of State.
IGB is a gas pipeline, which will allow Bulgaria to receive Azerbaijani gas, in particular, the gas produced from Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz 2 gas and condensate field. IGB is expected to be connected to the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) via which gas from the Shah Deniz field will be delivered to the European markets.
The initial capacity of IGB will be 3 billion cubic meters of gas. The project’s cost is estimated at around 240 million euros.
