Vertical Gas Corridor: Administrators’ Agreement on the Request for Approval of ‘Route 2’
On November 7, on the sidelines of the Ministerial Meeting of the Partnership for Transatlantic Energy Cooperation (P-TEC), held in Athens, in the presence of US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, Ion Sterian, CEO of Transgaz, together with the other CEOs of the Transmission System Operators on the Trans-Balkan Corridor — part of the Vertical Gas Corridor — signed a Joint Letter to the National Regulatory Authorities of Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine requesting approval for the supply of special capacity products Route 2 and Route 3 until April 2026.
This product will target fuel transportation starting from the Alexandroupolis terminal, then passing through Bulgaria via the Greece interconnection pipeline and from there following the main ‘trunk’ of the Vertical Gas Corridor to reach Ukraine. If approved by regulators, ‘Route 2’ will provide greater flexibility in the use of the Vertical Gas Corridor, adding another route.
We remind you that ‘Route 1’ includes as its starting point and terminal the liquefied natural gas terminal in Revithoussa, controlled by the Greek state-owned company DESFA, and the gas is transmitted to Bulgaria through the connection point in Sidirokastro.
As with ‘Route 1’, capacity will be booked through monthly auctions to ‘lock-in’ capacity for the following month. In the first phase, the aim is to have the product approved by April 2026, as was recently the case with the first product.
The administrators’ intention is to extend the two products until October 2026. Until then, work to modernize Bulgaria’s gas transmission network, which is already underway, will be completed. Consequently, a larger proportion of the Greek transmission system’s export capacity will be able to be exploited, as quantities exported to the north will be able to transit Bulgaria.
The objective of all parties involved is for the Vertical Gas Corridor route to be fully completed by the end of 2027. This is because Russian gas supplies will then be cut off, and the Vertical Gas Corridor will need to be able to replace the quantities of fuel (about 14bcm) that countries in the region are currently buying from Moscow.
Vertical Gas Corridor, objectives
The Vertical Gas Corridor is part of the South-North Corridor of the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) and aims to diversify natural gas sources and increase the security of gas supply for countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. This initiative was launched and supported as early as 2016 by Ion Sterian, Transgaz’s CEO.
The project involves the collaboration of countries in the Central and South-East European Union, including Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece, together with the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, to develop a new alternative gas supply in the region, thus strengthening energy security.
The Vertical Gas Corridor represents an extensive pipeline system consisting of current and future infrastructure, including pipelines, liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals and storage facilities. Its full activation, through the appropriate upgrading of the networks in the above-mentioned countries, will allow gas to be transported from south to north and vice versa through the European natural gas and LNG transmission systems, capitalizing on the increased capacities of new and developing LNG terminals in the area. This potential can be further expanded by using the mentioned infrastructure for renewable gases and hydrogen.
The project initiated by Transgaz, through CEO Ion Sterian, is also backed by the US administration, which sees it as an opportunity to reduce the volatility of gas prices and a way to break free from Russian gas.
