TIRANA, July 16 – Albania’s parliament ratified an agreement with Bulgaria and Macedonia for the construction of a trans-Balkan pipeline to transport oil from the Black Sea to the Adriatic by 2011.
The deal was approved, though the statement did not indicate what the vote total in parliament was.
The US $1.5 billion Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Oil Corp. pipeline, known as the AMBO project, will link Burgas in Bulgaria to Vlore in Albania.
The 895-kilometer (556-mile) pipeline will bypass the busy Bosporus strait in Turkey.
Ministers from three countries signed an agreement on January 31 setting out the legal framework for the AMBO project.
The project will be financed using a formula of 71 percent debt and 29 percent equity.
Once financing has been secured and impact assessments completed, construction could begin in 2008 and the first oil could flow in 2011.
