The countries of Southeastern Europe still continue to receive pipeline gas from Russia via Ukraine and one of the two branches of the Turkish Stream. However, the entire region is actively preparing to replace these supplies. The most important alternative to gas pipelines coming from the east is the Vertical Corridor from LNG terminals in Greece.
Deutsche Welle writes about two events in recent weeks that indicate the successful implementation of these plans.
Alexandroupolis is a Greek port on the Aegean coast. And the regasification vessel that arrived at this port on December 17, 2023, and will start receiving liquefied natural gas tankers in the coming weeks, is also called Alexandroupolis. It has been converted into a floating liquefied gas storage and regasification plant. This terminal will be able to pump 5.5 billion cubic meters of gas into the Greek gas transportation network annually.
However, the LNG terminal in Alexandroupolis was conceived not so much to supply the domestic Greek market as to work for export, namely, to supply the countries of Southeast Europe in order to reduce its dependence on Gazprom and Russia.
The implementation of the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) pipeline project, which received political and financial support from the European Union, was severely delayed for various reasons, but in October 2022, the IGB began operations.
At the same time, the idea of the Vertical Corridor, formulated in late 2014 by Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania and later supported by other EU countries, began to take shape. The essence of the project is to create the technical capabilities to supply the entire Balkan Peninsula, as well as Hungary and Austria, with the gas that will be delivered to Greece from Azerbaijan via the TANAP-TAP pipeline and from around the world to Greek LNG terminals.
And now, on January 19, 2024, Slovakia, Moldova, and Ukraine joined the Vertical Corridor project at a ministerial meeting of the CESEC group in Athens. As a result, Ukraine will be able to become not only a consumer of gas supplied to Alexandroupolis, but also a transit country on the way of fuel from Romania to Central Europe.
Ukraine will also provide gas storage services to the Vertical Corridor participants in its large underground storage facilities.
The immediate goal of the group is to identify points of expansion of the existing infrastructure by July.
Another regasification vessel Thrace (Thrace, Thrace) is planned to be commissioned 8 km east of Alexandroupolis in 2025. Their total capacity will be 11 billion cubic meters of gas per year, and Gastrade intends to export 70% of this volume – primarily to Bulgaria, Serbia, North Macedonia, Romania, and in the future – to Hungary.
Read more about who is involved in the large-scale project and what Ukraine's participation in it will bring to other participants in the Mind article "Vertical Corridor of European Gas Supply: What is it and Who Benefits from it".