AMBO pipeline was a planned oil pipeline from the Black Sea port of Burgas via the Republic of Macedonia to the Adriatic Sea port of Vlorë.
On 30 October 2006, Albania and the Republic of Macedonia signed a protocol to determinate the entrance points of the pipeline. The entrance point will be Stebleve village in Albania and Lakaica village in the Republic of Macedonia. A similar protocol between Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia was signed later in 2006.
On 31 January 2007, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria and Albania signed a trilateral convention on the construction of the AMBO pipeline. This document was ratified by the Parliaments of all three countries and governed the construction, operation, and maintenance of the pipelines.
In 2006, intervention was proposed by Russia (President Putin) with a proposal for a competing pipeline from Burgas to Alexandropoulos in Greece. The financing of this was to be by Russia and was tied to the finance of an Atomic Energy Power Plant. It took at least four years for the Russian proposal to be discarded. By which time shipping in the Bosphorus had settled into an acceptable operation and shippers/investors were reluctant to commit financing.
There would be four pump stations, two in Bulgaria and one each in the Republic of Macedonia and Albania, constructed along the route. A pre-front-end engineering and design study (FEED) was to be prepared by KBR. The pipeline was expected to be operational by 2011.
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