The nine gas infrastructure operators participating in the initiative confirmed their commitment to the completion of the "Vertical Corridor" of natural gas at a workshop held yesterday in Thessaloniki.

The "Vertical Corridor" aims at enhancing energy security and diversification of gas supply sources in the South East and Central European region, allowing the two-way flow of gas from South to North and, more specifically, from Greece to Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova, and Ukraine, through the connection of existing and new European gas and LNG transmission infrastructures. Already, significant quantities of LNG from Greece have reached our northern neighbours over the past years, and many of them have been stored in underground storage facilities in Ukraine using the Vertical Corridor.

During the meeting, the operators of the Vertical Corridor—DESFA, Gastrade, ICGB, BULGARTRANSGAZ, TRANSGAZ, FGSZ, EUSTREAM, VMTG, and GTSOWA—confirmed the importance of continuing their efforts to fully utilize the existing infrastructure of the Vertical Corridor, as well as further exploring ways of completing targeted projects to eliminate bottlenecks along the route, in order to create a unified gas market in the region and reduce dependence on a single supplier, in full alignment with the efforts of the European Union and the objectives of the REPower EU plan.