NGE Notes: EU Initiates Antitrust Probe Into Bulgarian Gas Supply

European regulators have opened an investigation into Bulgarian Energy Holding for potentially blocking rivals from accessing the country's gas transmission network as required by EU liberalisation rules.

In a statement, the EU antitrust regulator said that it had concerns that the Bulgarian Energy Holding and its gas subsidiaries Bulgargaz and Bulgartransgaz,  may be abusing their dominant market position on the natural gas markets in Bulgaria.

BEH, the holding company for many state energy related interests, has recently seen a series of rapid changes in top level management.

The action follows the EU's high profile initiation of a probe into the activities of  OAO Gazprom,  The EU is investigating Russia’s natural-gas monopoly over oil-indexed long-term gas supply contracts.  Over the past several months, Gazprom has provided many of it's key European with rebates or discounting on future deliveries.