Bulgaria has reached a deal to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US, the country’s government said in a statement on Wednesday. The agreement was reached during a meeting between Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov and US Vice President Kamala Harris.
Deliveries will begin in June, and, according to the statement, the country will be getting the commodity at a lower price than it paid for natural gas deliveries from Russia, although the exact sum has not been revealed so far.
Russia stopped gas deliveries to Bulgaria due to Sofia’s rejection of Moscow’s new ruble-based payment mechanism, which was introduced to secure gas payments in the face of Western sanctions that limited Russian financial transactions.
Bulgarian Energy Minister Alexander Nikolov commented on Sofia’s decision, stating that the procedure for paying for gas in accordance with Russia’s new demands “entails significant risks.”