Bulgargaz has withdrawn its earlier request for a small reduction in Bulgaria’s regulated wholesale gas price and replaced it with a proposal for a 4.6% increase, after technical problems disrupted contracted deliveries from Azerbaijan.
The state-owned supplier is seeking an August price of €39.43/MWh, excluding transmission and access charges, excise duty and value-added tax. Its initial application had proposed €37.36/MWh, which would have represented a modest reduction from July’s regulated level of approximately €37.70/MWh.
The revision illustrates the sensitivity of regulated gas prices to short-term changes in contracted supply. Azerbaijan is Bulgargaz’s principal long-term supplier outside Russia and is central to Bulgaria’s diversification strategy. Reduced August deliveries will require Bulgargaz to buy replacement volumes from Turkey, where the final cost will reflect prevailing regional prices, available capacity and commercial terms.
Azerbaijani gas has generally provided Bulgaria with a more competitive supply component than short-term purchases in neighbouring markets. Any interruption therefore affects not only physical availability but the weighted-average cost used in the regulated price calculation.
The increase remains moderate compared with the gas-price shocks experienced earlier in Europe’s supply crisis, but it will still feed into costs for district heating companies, industrial consumers and gas-fired generators. The effect on power prices will depend on how often gas units become marginal during August, particularly during evening periods when solar production falls.
The episode also demonstrates that diversification does not eliminate supply risk. Bulgaria has expanded its access to Azerbaijan, Greece, Turkey and LNG infrastructure, but each route remains subject to technical outages, congestion and commercial availability. The country’s resilience therefore depends on maintaining several active supply options rather than replacing one dominant source with another.
Bulgargaz’s ability to secure replacement gas through Turkey prevents the Azerbaijani disruption from becoming a physical supply problem. It comes at a price, however, and the proposed €39.43/MWh regulated tariff transfers part of that cost to the domestic market.
