The cabinet of Bulgaria has adopted a draft MoU with Slovakia on the Eastring pipeline project.

At its regular meeting on 13 July, it has moved to throw political support behind the project whose idea is to link the existing natural gas infrastructure of Bulgaria and Slovakia via Romania and Hungary.

The transport corridor, once providing a link to the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria or IGB, (that is due to be finished over the course of two years), is to ensure there are options for gas supplies both ways.

Eastring could potentially connect Slovakia with the Balkans and existing gas pipelines in Ukraine, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania to the planned Balkan gas hub near Bulgaria’s Black Sea port of Varna.

The MoU, once approved by all countries, will create a working group involving the countries' gas grid operators to study the project.