Russian gas giant Gazprom has offered to boost the amount of gas it transits through Bulgaria in exchange for a switch to cash only payments to the Balkan state, a senior Gazprom official said on Friday.
Bulgaria and Moscow faced off in a brief dispute in January when Sofia rejected Gazprom's demand to change its transit contract, which expires in 2010, because it would raise the price of natural gas in Bulgaria.
The Russian company has now offered to increase transits through Bulgaria, which now stand at 15.5 billion cubic metres a year, to compensate for it paying transit fees in cash instead of in gas supplies at lower-than-market rates.
"We are discussing what role Bulgaria may take in transiting gas to Turkey, Serbia and Macedonia ... It is about the possibility of it transiting 20 billion cubic metres of gas through 2020-2050," Alexander Medvedev, Gazprom deputy CEO told a news conference.
"We will gradually switch to contemporary market relations ... We insist on switching to a system in which we estimate the plans based on cash."
Gazprom now pays fees to Bulgaria in the form of gas set at around $83 per thousand cubic metres, compared with the $257 Bulgaria pays for supplies not covered by that contract.
Bulgaria may now reconsider its rejection of a previous offer by Gazprom and change the contract.