The Bulgarian section of the Gazprom’s Turkstream gas pipeline linking Turkey to Serbia will be built by the Saudi Swiss energy service group Arkad-ABB, based in Milan, and not the consortium comprising Luxembourg-based Completions Development, Italy's Bonatti and Germany's Max Streicher, ruled Bulgaria’s Supreme Administrative Court.
In April 2019, Bulgarian gas transmission system operator (TSO) Bulgartransgaz selected Arkad-ABB to develop the €1.1bn project. But as the Saudi Swiss company failed to provide documents needed to sign off the contract, it switched to the Completions-Bonatti-Max Streicher consortium. This move was considered as unlawful by Bulgaria's Commission for Protection of Competition in July 2019. The Bulgarian competition authority's verdict was subject to a final appeal in the courts but the Supreme Administrative Court said that the lawsuit had been withdrawn, meaning that Arkad-ABB has now been definitively reinstated.
The 484 km long pipeline will ship Russian natural gas across Bulgaria from its southern border with Turkey to its western border with Serbia. The project will secure connection to Gazprom’s TurkStream gas interconnection project (31.5 bcm/year pipeline, of which 15.75 bcm/year for southern and south-eastern Europe).
Bulgaria imported 3.1 bcm of natural gas in 2018, covering most of its gas consumption. The imported gas is purchased from Gazprom and Overgaz and comes from Russia (100% of total gas imports in 2017 and 2018) under a supply agreement with Gazprom for 2.9 bcm/year until 2022.