Bulgaria Reports No Change in Russian Gas Supply, Transit Volumes

Bulgaria said on Wednesday that supplies of Russian natural gas to the country and the volumes for transit to its neighbours are flowing normally - several hours after Russia said it has stopped supplying gas to Ukraine.

Bulgaria, which is almost entirely dependent on Russia for its gas imports, receives them via a transit pipeline crossing Ukraine and Romania.

"Currently, there is no change" in the contractual volumes and pressure fed into the national and transit gas transmission networks, the Energy Ministry in Sofia said on its website.

The gas volumes transported via the transit network on Bulgarian territory are also within the contractual parameters. The Bulgarian network for transit transmission is ensuring chiefly natural gas transport to Turkey, Greece and Macedonia.

The Energy Ministry also said that there are more than 450 million cubic meters pumped into the underground gas storage  in Chiren, in northern Bulgaria.

The present capacity can provide storage of up to 550 million cubic meters of gas for the needs of home consumers, according to Bulgartransgaz company.

Russian energy giant Gazprom said earlier on Wednesday that it has stopped supplying gas to Ukraine after the government in Kiev reportedly failed to make the agreed advance payments for new gas supplies.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk, however, said that his government ordered the country's gas company Naftogaz to stop purchasing natural gas from Russia as "the price offers from our European partners are much better than those from our northern neighbor," according to interfax.com.ua.