Burgas–Alexandroupoli pipeline
The Burgas - Alexandroupolis oil pipeline is a pipeline that will connect the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Burgas to the Greek port of Alexandroupolis on the Aegean Sea.
It is used to transport oil from Russia, Kazakhstan and the Caucasus republics. It allows the transportation of oil through the Straits in Turkey, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles can be avoided. Firstly, the sea through the Turkish Straits is already very busy. It may arise for tankers costly delays. Second, the passage through the Straits, particularly through the Bosporus in the metropolis of Istanbul, which is sometimes only a few hundred meters wide, risky. Accident a tanker, great damage could be caused.
Building design and technical features
The construction of the approximately 262 km long pipeline with a diameter of 1000 mm (42 inches) was originally supposed to begin in 2008 and be completed in 2011. Later schedules saw before construction to begin in 2011 and commissioning in 2014.
Its capacity should be initiated at 35 million tons of crude oil per year. When completed, the pipeline will transport up to 50 million tons of crude oil.
The project includes the expansion of the oil port of Burgas to allow oil tankers can create with a capacity to 150,000 tons in Burgas. As an alternative, in Burgas for the discharge of tankers as well as the only variant in Alexandroupolis for loading the tanker ( in Alexandroupolis in size up to 320,000 tons ) loading buoys (single buoy moorings, SBM) were planned, about the tanker clearance at a distance of 10-12 km from the coast provide.
Owner of the pipeline company
The majority of the Trans- Balkan Oil Pipeline Company ' hold a 51% Russian state company Rosneft, Transneft and Gazprom Neft.
Bulgarian and Greek companies are 24.5% each. On the Greek side, this is the joint venture Greece Bapline consortium to which Hellenic Petroleum, the Latsis group, petroleum gas and the Greek State (1%) own shares. On the Bulgarian side, there is the " Project Companies Burgas - Alexandroupolis BG " where the State Company " Bulgargas " and " Technoexportstroj " EAD are each involved in half.
The pipeline company has been registered in the Netherlands as an offshore company.
Other oil pipelines in the area Black Sea / Turkey
Already stands for the transport of oil from the Caspian region to the West, the BTC pipeline Baku -Tbilisi- Ceyhan available. It runs from Azerbaijan through Georgia to the south coast of Turkey to Ceyhan.
The discussion is also a pipeline from Burgas to the Adriatic Sea, the AMBO oil pipeline.
Protests
Since 2008 stirs particularly in the Bulgarian Black Sea municipalities of Burgas, Pomorie and Sozopol resistance against the oil pipeline. From local and national politicians took up the project, including the nationalist party Ataka. The opaque policies of the government of Sergey Stanishev and Putin as well as internal political struggles ahead of the parliamentary elections in 2009 led to the first citizens' initiative in the history of the Republic of Bulgaria and protests from environmentalists. The problem questions are how and where the oil into the Bay of Burgas comes from the tankers to the pipeline and how the oil pipeline, the largest protected area in Bulgaria - the Natural Park Saddle beach and the protected seascape castle Asseen happens. From the promoters conducted public hearings to present the project in detail and to answer questions, ended in disaster, as the representative of the promoter did not come to speak and were literally shouted down by the attending visitors, among them voting strong representative of the hotel lobby.
To appease the mood begins 2010 the operator consortium Trans Bolkan pipeline the Internet portal Istinata za Projekta ( Bulg Истината за проекта to dt The truth about the project).
Mid-December 2011 declared the Bulgarian government 's unilateral withdrawal from the current project.