Study for trans-Balkan oil pipeline successfully completed
The governments of the Republic of Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Albania and the Board of Directors of AMBO
(Albanian-Macedonian-Bulgarian Oil pipeline corporation) announced that the United States Government-sponsored
feasibility study for the trans-Balkan oil pipeline project has been successfully completed and delivered to the
contracting parties.
The United States Government’s Trade and Development Agency provided significant financial support towards
completing a full $ 1 mm study, which updated and enlarged the project's original feasibility study dating from early
1996.
The trans-Balkan oil pipeline will carry crude oil from the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Bourgas to the Albanian
Adriatic Sea port of Vlore. AMBO, which is a privately-funded company headquartered in Pound Ridge, New York, is the
developer of this $ 1.1 bn. project.
Together with the US Government's South Balkan Development Initiative (SBDI) and the Stability Pact process, the AMBO
pipeline will become an integral part of East-West corridor number 8 including highway, railway, gas, and optic-optic
telecommunications lines. Specifically, the AMBO pipeline will permit oil companies operating in the Caspian Sea to
ship their oil to Rotterdam and the East Coast of the USA at substantially less cost than they are experiencing
today.
Brown & Root Energy Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Halliburton, an American company, completed the
original feasibility study for this project. The pipeline -- 36-inch diameter with a projected throughput of 750,000
bpd -- will extend for approximately 890 km reaching a maximum altitude of approximately 1,000 meters in the Albanian
segment.
Each of these three countries is fully supportive of this project and has signed an Interministerial Protocol to
confirm its backing.
