“Only in case of diversification of natural gas supplies we can talk about competition and create conditions for market liberalization”, Energy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova said at a round table in the National Assembly, where the concept of the Balkan gas hub was presented.

“For this diversification, it is necessary to establish infrastructure links with the countries in the region and on the energy exchange, which will give us security and competitive prices of energy, respectively – a competitive economy”, Petkova said, according to Novinite. “At the Ministry of Energy, we fully support the initiative to create a natural gas exchange and we will help with all our expertise”, said Temenuzhka Petkova.

“With the gradual development of the liberalization of the natural gas market, the role of the energy regulator is increasing”, said Ivan Ivanov, Chairman of the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission. “KEVR is committed to issuing a license to the stock exchange operator, including the gas trading platform. The right solution is to borrow a trading platform from a serious trader, as a good option is the European-wide Baumgarten Natural Gas Platform, Austria”, Ivan Ivanov said. “KEVR will also approve measures to control liquidity, to prevent market abuse and leakage of inside information from the stock exchange”, he added.