Burgas-alexandroupoli oil pipeline plan abandoned
Bulgaria’s cabinet decided yesterday to propose to parliament to cancel its participation in a 2007 agreement with Russia and Greece to build an oil pipeline bypassing Turkey’s crowded Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, the government in Sofia said in an e-mailed statement. The pipeline can’t be built under the conditions agreed on in 2007 and Bulgaria is
Alpha Bank announced yesterday that when its acquisition of Emporiki is complete, customers of both banks will be able to use both of their cash machine networks free of charge. Previous Emporiki owner Credit Agricole payed 2.9 billion euros to boost its capital upon signing the sale contract with Alpha. taking steps to end its participation in the project by asking the lawmakers to “denounce” the agreement, the government said. Bulgaria proposed to dissolve the trilateral agreement in December 2011. The cost of the proposed 285-kilometer pipeline from the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Burgas to the Greek port of Alexandroupoli on the Aegean was initially estimated at 1 billion euros.
Cyprus-Total.
Cyprus yesterday signed a deal with France’s Total to search for offshore oil and gas, hailing its anticipated energy bonanza as a way out of austerity it faces due to exposure to indebted Greece. Signing a production sharing agreement with the third energy major this year, Cyprus hopes for a windfall from hydrocarbons beneath the seabed in a largely untapped area of the east Mediterranean. Any finds are not expected to come ashore until 2018 at the very earliest for domestic consumption, and in 2019 for export. But Commerce, Industry and Tourism Minister Neoklis Sylikiotis said they would bring relief to Cyprus, which is in line for an international bailout with the accompanying tough conditions placed on its economy.
Cypriot aid.
Germany won’t stand in the way of aid for Cyprus so long as the Mediterranean nation fulfills the criteria to qualify for help from Europe’s bailout fund, Deputy Finance Minister Steffen Kampeter said late on Tuesday. Outstanding questions still need to be addressed, including Cyprus’s systemic relevance to the euro area, the future size of the country’s banking industry, tax policy and how the Cypriot authorities deal with money “which perhaps isn’t legally sent in” to the island, Kampeter said in an interview in Berlin.