CHANGE IN THE RULES FOR THE USE OF CHIREN UNDERGROUND GAS STORAGE AND THE CONTRACT FOR ACCESS AND NATURAL GAS STORAGE

Following its policies for sustainable development and increasing the quality of the offered services, Bulgartransgaz EAD provided ingas year 2023/2024 the opportunity to the users of Chiren UGS to book storage capacity in Chiren UGS electronically using the Capacity Booking Platform (the RBP).

The results of RBP test use show that market participants positively perceived the allocation of capacity in Chiren UGS in an electronic environment. The use of an electronic platform allocating storage, injection and withdrawal capacity in Chiren UGS facilitates the participants in the procedures and allows them to timely monitor the results from each phase and control dynamically their actions.

In view of the above, as a result of the successful implementation of the RBP functionalities of the conducted capacity allocation procedures in Chiren UGS, the corresponding changes must also be introduced in the Rules for the use of Chiren UGS and the Contract for access and natural gas storage in Chiren UGS, approved by Decision of the Management Board of Bulgartransgaz EAD under Minutes No.503 оf 19.01.2021.

Furthermore, the successful use of the electronic platform (RBP) for the allocation of capacity in Chiren UGS makes it possible to hold auction procedures for the allocation of storage capacity, using as the starting price in the auction procedures, the price approved by the EWRC and published on the Operator's website for the booking of the respective capacity product at the time of the auction procedure.

Bulgartransgaz EAD informs all interested parties that it is introducing, starting from the gas storage year 2024/2025, a storage capacity allocation mechanism in Chiren UGS, namely - an auction using an ascending-clock auction algorithm and an auction using a uniform price auction algorithm.

Auctions will be held on the electronic platform - RBP, at starting price - the price approved by the EWRC and published on the Operator's website for the booking of the respective capacity product valid at the time of the auction procedure.

In this context, Bulgartransgaz EAD amended accordingly the effective Rules for the use of Chiren UGS (the Rules) and the Contract for access and natural gas storage in Chiren UGS (the Contract) that reflect the new storage capacity allocation mechanism.

The Rules and the Contract have been approved by Decision under Minutes No. 787/12.03.2024 of a meeting of Bulgartransgaz EAD's Management Board, enter into force on 12 March 2024 and shall apply in the capacity allocation procedures in Chiren UGS as of gas year 2024-2025.

The Rules for the use of Chiren UGS are available here;

The Contract for access and natural gas storage in Chiren UGS is available here.