By Dmitry Chubashenko
CHISINAU (Reuters) - Moldova closed a major pipeline carrying Russian natural gas to the Balkans on Wednesday, after it was damaged by a blast, and Turkey reported a drop in deliveries.
The blast occurred in Moldova's separatist region of Transdniestria at 0530 local time (3:30 a.m. British time) on the Ananyev-Tiraspol-Izmail pipeline running from Russia via Ukraine and Moldova to the Balkans.
The pipeline supplies most of the gas needs of Bulgaria, Romania and serves part of Turkey's needs.
Turkey said supplies had fallen. Ukraine said it had cut transit supplies to Moldova and the Balkans after the blast by 40 percent to 24 million cubic metres per day.
"The gas pipeline was closed on the stretch between Tiraspol and Causeni," a spokesman for Moldova's Civil Defence and Emergencies Committee told Reuters.
Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom declined immediate comment.
"I can confirm there was an explosion on a gas pipeline," said Moldovan government spokesman Vitalie Condratchi. "There is no talk of terrorism."
Gas supplies on the western trans-Balkan pipeline, which sends about 30 million cubic metres of gas to Turkey daily, were expected to be completely halted later on Wednesday, the official at Turkey's Botas, the state pipeline operator, said.
Bulgaria's Bulgargaz chief executive Dimitar Gogov told Reuters the country was getting Russian gas via alternative pipelines despite the blast.
"(Deliveries to Bulgaria have not been reduced) - neither in terms of pressure, nor of quantity," Gogov said.
Bulgaria gets around 3 bcm a year, Romania around 4.5 bcm and Turkey, which consumes around 24 bcm a year, gets part of its supplies via the route. There was no immediate word from Romania on the state of its gas deliveries.
(Writing by Dmitry Solovyov, Guy Faulconbridge and Dmitry Zhdannikov; editing by Anthony Barker)