Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2025 All Rights Reserved

Media speculations appear that Lukoil in Burgas will be bought by Azerbaijan's SOCAR

Photo: Reuters

The Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR is the most likely buyer of the Lukoil Neftohim Burgas refinery, reported the site of the Trud newspaper. At the end of April 2023, SOCAR opened an office in Sofia in the presence of the presidents of Bulgaria and Azerbaijan, Rumen Radev and Ilham Aliyev. At the same time, the Commission for Energy and Water Regulation granted a license to SOCAR Trading Gas and Power to trade natural gas on the Bulgarian market, Trud daily writes.

The famous economist Evgeny Kanev was the first to predict that the buyer would be SOCAR. He was joined on December 6 by Delyan Dobrev, the deputy from GERB, who is the chairman of the energy commission in the Parliament, according to the website of the Sega newspaper.

"Due to the geographical specifics of the production in Burgas and the logistics of supplying it with raw materials, the comments from the industry are that some interest in the refinery may come mainly from the Black Sea region, where the strong positions are held by the Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR, which has a huge refinery in Turkey, and to Kazakhstan's KazMunayGas, owner of Romanian Rompetrol," wrote Capital.

SOCAR recently entered into an agreement with Russia's Lukoil, Reuters reported, according to which the Russian oil company will lend SOCAR $1.5 billion and supply SOCAR's STAR oil refinery in Turkey with up to 200,000 barrels per day of Russian crude oil.



Последвайте ни и в Google News Showcase, за да научите най-важното от деня!
Listen to the daily news from Bulgaria presented in "Bulgaria Today" podcast, available in Spotify.

More from category

Car Speed ​​Show will take place in Sofia on September 27-28

Car Speed ​​Show 2025 will take place on September 27 and 28 at Arena 8888 in Sofia. The automotive and lifestyle exhibition will bring together sports, luxury and collector cars, motorcycles and yachts, innovative products for the automotive industry,..

published on 9/27/25 7:10 AM

Drop in temperatures, cloudy skies, rain expected in Bulgaria over the weekend

On Saturday, the minimum temperatures in Bulgaria will be from 8 to 13C, in Sofia – 10C. During the day, cloudy weather will prevail. Rain is expected in the southwestern regions. A moderate wind will blow from the east-northeast.  Maximum..

published on 9/26/25 7:25 PM

Bulgarian industry is vulnerable to climate dumping

In economic terms, Bulgaria is highly dependent on carbon-intensive production and is particularly vulnerable to the risk of these productions being shifted to countries with weaker environmental standards, with the corresponding loss of jobs and a..

published on 9/26/25 6:01 PM