Bulgaria may impose further gas rationing

SOFIA, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Bulgaria will be forced to ration further gas deliveries to companies next week if suspended supplies from Russia do not resume, the energy ministry said on Wednesday.

Bulgaria, which has been cut off from natural gas supplies since last Tuesday following a price spat between Moscow and Kiev, has already sharply reduced or completely suspended deliveries to more than 300 big industrial consumers.

As a result dozens of factories are not operating.

"We can support the current rationing system by January 21. After that we will propose a more drastic regime as reserves will decline," said Atanas Saikov, deputy head of a special crisis council at the energy ministry said.

The poorest European Union state, one of the worst-hit in the gas row, is now covering about a third of its daily gas needs with 4.3 million cubic metres from its sole storage facility.

Storage flows are expected to start declining next week, officials have said. Supplies to utilities which heat homes, hospitals and schools, remain a priority.

Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, who flew to Moscow and Kiev on Wednesday to discuss the gas crisis, is under pressure to secure supplies as stocks are running out and anger among Bulgarians is mounting.

The Balkan country is almost fully dependent on Russian gas and has no access to alternative pipeline routes.

Stanishev said on Monday the country of 7.6 million might be forced to reopen an old Soviet nuclear reactor to meet increased power demand if the gas disruption dragged on. (Reporting by Tsvetelia Ilieva; editng by James Jukwey)