March 11, 2008	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 2, 1429

BAKU, March 10: Bulgaria is ready to buy one billion cubic metres of gas annually from energy-rich Azerbaijan, Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov said on Monday during a visit to the ex-Soviet republic’s capital Baku.

Parvanov said he had discussed Azerbaijan’s participation in the European Union’s Nabucco gas pipeline with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and declared Bulgaria’s readiness to work on oil and gas projects in the country.

“Azerbaijan and Bulgaria play a major role in developing energy security,” he told journalists after meeting Aliyev.

Parvanov said the two leaders had also discussed Azerbaijan feeding Caspian crude oil into the Russian-backed Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline project.

The EU’s 3,300-km Nabucco pipeline is to transport gas from the Middle East and Central Asia to energy-hungry consumers in Europe, bypassing Russia in an attempt to reduce the bloc’s reliance on Moscow. The pipeline, due to be completed in 2013, will run from the Caspian Sea via Turkey and the Balkan states to Austria.

The Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline project foresees the building of a 280-km pipeline between the Bulgarian port of Burgas and the port of Alexandroupolis in Greece to deliver oil from the Black Sea to the Aegean.—AFP