Boyko Borissov, leader of Bulgaria’s ruling GERB party, has announced active discussions with American investors to expand the TurkStream pipeline extension, which is currently the only route for Russian pipeline gas flowing into Central Europe and is almost entirely supplied by Gazprom.
“There is no talk of a sale (of the gas pipeline), but rather of investment and expansion of its capacity,” Borissov stated Wednesday night, May 14th.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Rossen Zhelyazkov confirmed that negotiations are underway with a U.S. hedge fund but declined to reveal further details. However, the prospect of foreign investment is legally constrained: the pipeline is classified as exclusive state property in Bulgaria and cannot be sold.
Bulgaria currently earns over $300 million annually from the transit of Russian gas through its territory to Serbia and Hungary. Any changes to pipeline ownership or function could carry significant strategic implications, both regionally and across the broader European energy landscape.
“A U.S. investment of this kind would only make sense if sanctions are imposed on Russian gas imports into the EU. In that case, expanding gas infrastructure in Bulgaria could facilitate increased imports of liquefied natural gas, including American LNG, into Central Europe,” Ruslan Stefanov, executive director of the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD), told Euronews.
There are suspicions that Russian gas could return to Europe through U.S. intermediaries, bypassing the EU’s stigma on direct Russian imports. Now this multi-million-dollar investment could be the first step towards this future.
