Greece’s Energy Ministry is considering natural gas storage in Italy and Bulgaria to ensure sufficient supplies for the 2022-23 winter season.
The Trans-Adriatic Pipeline which runs from from Azerbaijan at the Caspian Sea, to Europe from Greece through Albania, and the Adriatic Sea to Italy. Credit: Albinfo, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Greece’s Energy Ministry is considering natural gas storage in Italy and Bulgaria to ensure sufficient supplies for the 2022-23 winter season. The European Commission requires all European Union member-states without gas storage to secure agreements with countries that do have storage by November 1 this year, for quantities equivalent to 15% of annual gas consumption. In the case of Greece, the annual consumption of natural gas in 2020 was 5.8 billion cubic meters, which means that it is necessary to ensure a stored quantity of 0.9 billion m³.
Bulgaria does have a natural gas storage facility, to which the Hellenic Gas Transmission System Operator (DESFA) is interconnected. A second interconnection point is expected to start operating soon through the Gas Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) pipeline. But Bulgaria’s underground facility has a relatively limited capacity of 0.6 billion m³.
The capacity of storage facilities in Italy is in the order of 20 billion m³. Greece is connected with these via Albania and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). In this case, it is expected that the required quantities can be secured on the basis of exchange agreements.
