Kommersant business daily cited Mr Traycho Traikov Bulgarian Minister of Economy, Energy and Tourism as saying that Bulgaria may cut its gas imports from Russia to 500,000 cubic meters from the current 2 billion cubic meters in the next two to three years.

Mr Traikov said local production including from shale gas and gas purchases from other countries including Azerbaijan would help Bulgaria decrease the share of Russian gas in its energy balance and abandon long term contracts preferred by Gazprom. Long term deals usually mean higher prices than those on the spot market.

As per report, in a year or two Bulgaria hopes to start producing 1 billion cubic meters of gas from a local deposit which has estimated reserves of 10 billion cubic meters. Mr Traikov also said that the country shale gas reserves would run for 300 years.

Bulgaria also pins hopes on the Nabucco pipeline project which is part of the EU effort to diversify natural gas supplies and reduce the region dependence on Russian gas.

(Sourced from Kommersant)