Ankara is considering possibilities for cooperation with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) to increase gas transportation to Bulgaria, Azernews reports.

Alparslan Bayraktar, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Turkiye, mentioned this in an interview with the "Bloomberg" agency.

"Turkiye is ready to sell more natural gas to the European Union, but it requires long-term commitments to justify the necessary infrastructure investments. What we need is an increase in the Turkiye-Bulgaria inter-grid capacity, which currently can only handle half of the 7 billion cubic meters of gas per year that the Turkish side can technically supply," he stated.

Bayraktar added that Ankara can collaborate with SOCAR to enhance gas supply to Europe to 10 billion cubic meters per year through the Turkiye -Bulgaria interconnector.

The minister also described the scenarios currently under consideration for supplying alternative gas to Europe, as a replacement for Russia's "blue fuel", as "complex".