BSTDB Supports Expansion of Trans-Balkan Gas Pipeline

Press Release | 21-Nov-2001

The Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB) will make available US$ 6 million to Gastransit (Ukraine) for the expansion of the Trans-Balkan Gas Pipeline. The project with the total cost of US$97 million will be financed together with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), HypoVereinsbank and Agricultural Bank of Greece.

The project involves the expansion and operation of a stretch of the Trans-Balkan Pipeline in south-western Ukraine. Gastransit will construct three new sections of the pipeline with a total length of approximately 70 km. The new pipeline will run parallel to the existing route to minimize any additional impact on the environment, and construction will comply with international environmental standards.

The investment forms the second part of a two-phased project to help overcome a major bottleneck in the Trans-Balkan Pipeline, which is an important transportation route for Russian gas to Türkiye, as well as to other countries including Bulgaria, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Romania and Greece. The first phase of the project, to which BSTDB contributed US$ 12 million, involved the construction of a gas compressor station in Ukraine. The second phase of the project is expected to help increase gas supply to these countries by up to 1.6 billion cubic meters a year.

The BSTDB support for the Trans-Balkan Gas Pipeline project as a whole reflects the priority of the energy sector and the core of the Bank’s mandate, which is the promotion of cross border cooperation with high development impact for the countries of the Black Sea region.

Gastransit is a Russian, Ukrainian and Turkish joint venture established in 1997 as a vehicle to build, own and operate additional gas transit capacity in Ukraine, in particular to supply the markets of south eastern Europe and Türkiye with Russian gas.