Bulgaria intends to revive the Trans-Balkan oil pipeline project in order to provide supplies of non-Russian crude oil for its only refinery on the Black Sea, controlled by the Russian Lukoil company, said Bulgarian President Rumen Radev.

Sofia is negotiating with Athens to build a 300-kilometer oil pipeline to transport crude oil from the Greek port of Alexandroupolis on the Aegean Sea to the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Burgas, Radev said. Bulgaria received a two-year exemption from the European Union's ban on Russian oil imports imposed in the wake of the war in Ukraine.

Nevertheless, the country needs to secure enough non-Russian oil to keep the 196,000-barrel-per-day Black Sea oil refinery running until the exemption expires in 2024. The refinery provides more than 75 percent of the fuel for the local market.

In 2011, Bulgaria abandoned the pipeline project, then aimed at pumping up to 50 million tons of Russian oil a year through its territory to Greece, for economic and environmental reasons. Its estimated cost at the time was 1 billion euros.

Supplies of non-Russian oil to Bulgaria's Black Sea refinery could be hampered by congestion in the Bosphorus Strait, making the pipeline project with Greece an attractive and more cost-effective option, officials said.

Bulgarian Energy Minister Rossen Hristov expressed hope that a memorandum of understanding will be signed with Greece in the next couple of weeks so that the two countries can begin working on the structure of the pipeline project.