Bulgarian officials and LUKoil negotiate pipeline construction

The government of Bulgaria is negotiating the opportunity to participate in the construction of the oil pipeline Burgas-Alexandroupolis (Greece) with Russia's oil giant LUKoil. This information was reported by Bulgarian Economy Minister Nikolai Vasilev at a meeting with journalists in St. Petersburg. He stated that Russia was in ninth place in the volume of investments in Bulgarian economy, i.e. $206m, while Greece was in the first place followed by Germany, Belgium and the USA. The largest Russian investor in Bulgaria is LUKoil, which owns a refinery in Burgas, the largest refinery in the Balkan region.

According to information from LUKoil, its investments in southeastern Europe totaled $192m in 2002, which was three time more than in 2001. In 2003 LUKoil is going to increase exports of fuel to Europe and the USA from 7m to 10.5m tons.

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