North Macedonia has shown interest to buy a stake in Greece’s Gastrade, the developer of the planned Alexandroupolis LNG import facility.
Gastrade said in a statement on Wednesday it signed cooperation deals with two state-owned utilities. These are National Energy Resources NER AD Skopje and AD Power Plants of Northern Macedonia AD ESM.
According to the Greek firm, NER AD plans to buy its share capital while AD ESM aims to reserve capacity at the terminal on a long-term basis.
“The parties will work together in formulating the details of both agreements to be presented to their respective governance bodies for their approval,” Gastrade said.
Gastrade’s LNG import project includes a 170,000-cbm FSRU to be located 17.6 kilometers offshore the town of Alexandroupolis in Northeastern Greece.
Furthermore, the 5.5 bcm per year vessel will supply the fuel to several markets in the region.
This includes Greece, Bulgaria and the wider region, from Romania, Serbia and North Macedonia to Hungary, Moldova and Ukraine, according to Gastrade.
To remind, Bulgaria’s state gas firm Bulgartransgaz has last year also purchased a 20 percent stake in Gastrade.
The other shareholders include Copelouzos which holds 40 percent, DEPA, and Gaslog that will provide the FSRU.
Greece’s gas grid operator DESFA has also purchased a 20 percent stake in Gastrade from Copelouzous but this deal is still subject to regulatory approvals.
Gastrade expects to launch the LNG terminal in Alexandroupolis in 2023.
