Bulgaria's Energy Crisis Case Study: Impact & Solutions

Introduction - Navigating the 2022 Petrol & Gas Shortage

In this research, a critical discussion based on the crisis of Petrol and Gas in Bulgaria is going to be performed. Also, the inclusion of new strategies and corresponding challenges would be identified with a justified critical discussion. The petrol gas crisis in Bulgaria is an unprecedented energy shortage that is affecting the economy as well as public relations within the country. Russia has cut the natural gas connection due to the Russia-Ukraine war and the European countries were establishing different sanctions on Russia. That is why, Russia has stopped its natural gas supply and Bulgaria has been affected by the Russian government's decision. Different negative factors are observed by European countries and some of these are, loss of gas volumes, lack of alternative supplies, capacity shortage, and many more. In addition it, Bulgaria was facing the biggest problem and the reason is, a few months ago the country was dependent on Russia for its natural gas. After some days, this country managed this situation through a good decision and the decision was that this country would exchange gas with Greece through an interconnecting pipeline. For this reason, Bulgaria reduced the price of petrol gas. There are different types of problems which are shown during this time and some of these are communication problems, economic problems, public relations problems, and many more. This Country also faced these types of problems and they were trying to adapt to this situation properly. In this research, a critical discussion based on the crisis of Petrol and Gas in Bulgaria is going to be performed. Also, the inclusion of new strategies and corresponding challenges would be identified with a justified critical discussion.

Aim and Objectives

Aim

The aim of this research is to assess the impact of the petrol gas crisis in 2022 and Crisis PR and communication management.

Objectives

Research objectives describe the all-over approach and the purpose of the recommended project. In this case, the topic is the petrol gas crisis in Bulgaria and it affects communication management and personal relationships. The objectives of this case study are mentioned below:

• RO1: To evaluate the impact of the petrol gas crisis which affects public relations in Bulgaria.
• RO2: To analyze the impact on communication management due to the petrol gas crisis in Bulgaria
• RO3: To assess the effectiveness of communication strategies in mitigating the petrol crisis in Bulgaria.
• RO4: To find the effectiveness of public relations management on crisis control measures in Bulgaria.

Research Hypothesis

A research hypothesis means it is a statement that creates a research question and finds an exact answer. In this study, these are as follows:

H1: The petrol gas crisis affects public relations in Bulgaria.

H2:.The petrol Crisis impacts communication management in Bulgaria.

H3: Communication strategies are used in the mitigation of the petrol crisis in Bulgaria

H4: PR management affects crisis control measures in Bulgaria.

Research Questions

Research questions are the questions that are proposed by the researcher. These are the following:

RQ1: How the petrol crisis has impacted Bulgaria's public relations?

RQ2: In which procedure this crisis has affected communication management in Bulgaria?

RQ3: What types of communication strategies have been used during this crisis to mitigate problems?

RQ4: How the public relations management work during this time to solve the crisis properly?

Literature review

Public relations (PR) furnish the management of the team with crisis management and supply them with the necessary support to solve the damage to the company. It helps to understand the relationship with the local community and national governments and to build up the brand and its reputation (Stanoeva, 2020). The public-related theory model is provided which contains "press agents, public, public information, two-sided symmetric and asymmetrical ways"

The consequences of the petrol gas crisis on the public in Bulgaria

Bulgaria Gas Company is launching three tenders for supporting liquefied natural gas to mitigate the shortages and to get long-term security. According to Mohamad et al. (2022), the country was dependent on Russian gas before Moscow cut out the deliveries. After the occurrence of the crisis, they started a tender for pipeline gas from neighboring Turkey. As opinioned by Gigauri et al. (2022), Bulgaria is aiming to purchase 130--150% of the required gas to support any kind of failure of deliveries. The minister suggested that Bulgaria needs to press the contracted gas from Gazprom that was brought at a cheaper price that is available on the spot markets and supplied until the end of 2022. After the COVID-19 recovery, there was 7.6% GDP growth in the year 2021 and the economic work performance slowed down in the year 2022.

Figure 1: Graphical representation of gasoline

Gasoline graphical representation is mentioned here. It led to high inflation with high interest rates and also weakening of external demand and a decline in business confidence. The gas interconnector Greece-Bulgaria natural gas pipeline came into operation in the year 2022 and it won't allow for receiving 1bcm from Azerbaijan. The country imports 90% of the natural gas from the Russian country via Turkey stream pipeline under a10 10-year contract which would expire at the end of 2022. The year 2022 was extremely difficult for the Bulgarian economy they faced one of the big challenges since this country is fully dependent on the energy which is being imported from Russia. Ninety % of the natural gas is coming from Russia. After this crisis, the annual inflation of Bulgaria has shown a sharp decline due to the arousal of the crisis researchgate.net (2023). Economic activities have increased by 0.9% on a consecutive basis. In the case of an annual basis, the growth of the real GDP has slowed by 3.9%. The country's economy has shown serious negative effects due to the deterioration of the relationship because 90% of the natural gas usually comes from Russia.

It was estimated that about 60% of the fuel originates from the Russian country. This country faced major negative consequences after the suspension of "Russia's Gazprom Export". This has negative effects on the Bulgarian Industry. This suspension causes additional pressure on the Bulgarian economy. High prices in the number of consumer' commodities and the crisis created a mess among the public because it had a major effect on the use of neutral gas, glass factories, fertilizers, and other industries.

The communication strategies and their impact on the Bulgarian crisis

A spokesperson has to be determined for representing the company and they must be trained for proper communication in regard to the issues. They are highly important because they make important decisions in regard to the crisis. According to Mur?ra?u et al. (2022), the mitigating team contains the CEO, chief advisers, and PR professionals. A proper message has to be developed which has to be conveyed to them and it has to be more specific towards the listeners. As opinioned by Balabanova (2019), the templates have to be formed for the generation of messages to every worker. Establishment of a notification and monitoring system can be installed it can be email, social media platforms, and television.

Figure 2: Communication technique

A well-organized way of communicating is sorted out in this paper. Proper communication can solve any sort of arousal of mess or crisis. A discussion with the transmission system operator was done to ensure all sorts of support when any kind of issue arises. The Energy and Water Regulatory Commission (EWRC) is responsible for the transmission, supply, and distribution of electricity, storage, and the distribution of electricity. They have to properly communicate in regard to the crisis and thus they can take the necessary steps. Early warning from the "competent authority" that can occur from the crisis has to be communicated with the public to prevent them from getting affected. Natural gas reports contain causes for the arousal of threat and the estimated time until the occurrence of the disorders. When alert notice is communicated properly then there would be fewer chances of negativity in the country."TSO" would be activated for taking out the solution of the crisis team." ME, EWRC" also would be ready for diminution the negative sports of the crisis.

When an emergency is announced, "Natural gas undertakers" take the necessary steps to diminish the problems. Communication has four pillars which are honesty, transparency, accountability, and consistency. All the information must be 100% true and clear. All the accounts-related information must be there. The information is to be communicated in a consistent manner; incomplete conversation is not accepted here. An incomplete conversation won't solve the problems.

The effectiveness of communication strategies in solving the petrol crisis in Bulgaria

The best method to solve the arousal of the crisis is to properly communicate regarding the crisis. The essential information has to be clear, quick, and transparent without complication. A proper sharing of what is known and also what is unknown. The stability of the crisis has to be brought with the proper guidance and it has to be clear-cut. Communication must be broad and if necessary repetition is needed sometimes multiple times communication is required. At first, a strategic plan has been made, and accordingly, it has to be conveyed to the managers to mitigate the solution. Some discussion has to be made to recover from the crisis and any kind of support if needed is arranged accordingly. Then finally the restoration of the situation has to be made accordingly. A "Crisis communication plan" acts as a blueprint during the crisis period and thus response is necessary (Maris et al. 2021). This communication plan helps to create a plan for mitigating this type of problem in the future. An action plan has to be made containing all the solutions related to the Bulgarian crisis and accordingly, the plan has to be followed to regain the previous structure. The right amount of funding has to be proposed for finding out the solutions to the crisis. Any problem can be solved with the proper funding strategy and effective leaders.

The effectiveness of PR management on the crisis control measures in Bulgaria

Both internal and external viewers look to the company's management to answer the question. According to Terziev et al. (2020), it provides the management with some techniques and gives them all the necessary support. This helps in bringing out the solution related to solving the damage to the country. As opinioned by Balabanova (2019), apart from solution preventive measures have to be taken into account.

• Training needs to be given to every allocated problem solver for successful management of the crisis.
• Need for "strategic devices" and experienced PR professionals for the execution of the crisis management when necessary. Some events have to organize a post-event recovery.
• Crisis management wraps up the company from the negative impacts of the events and takes the necessary actions as quickly as possible.

With the help of social listening and media, monitoring equipment identifies the origin of the crisis. The basics of solving the problem are to identify the problem and to get an idea in regard to the extent of the problem. The best channel for delivering postings is necessary in regard to crisis management. According to Živkov et al. (2019), this is the best way to communicate to the public and thus the public becomes aware of the problems. The team needs to respond as soon as possible because as soon the responses occur the steps have to be taken for solving.

Research gap

From the literature review it was found there are many sectors that need more scientific research. A gap analysis is done to mitigate the problems and the gaps that arise during the research. More steps have to be taken to understand the situation and questions are not answered in a proper manner. During the interview, the question is not satisfactorily answered. Many terms are not that aware of the situation and the person who is giving the interview could not answer so much related to the crisis. More areas of the crisis need to be focused on for further analysis of the problems. There is less number of teams found to get involved in the interview part. More interviews have to be taken to make the research more effective and qualitative (Focacci et al. 2021). Then the research paper would be more justified and fruitful. More areas of the Bulgarian effect are to be taken into account but cannot be done next time the analysis has to be made to make research more productive. The research that cannot be covered is to be analyzed I'm the next portion of the research and the research paper would be more authentic.

Methodology

Philosophy of the research

Positivism philosophy is commonly involved in the existence of the theory for developing the hypotheses, in the duration of the research procedure. Positivist researchers are most companies tend to use of higher level of structure in the research methodology, which is specifically being used with the reliance of scientific aspects in trying to follow the research (Hristova et al. 2023). Positivism relies on their experiences on valid sources of necessary knowledge and that is however the wide range with the basic nature of concepts of cause and time and space that mainly depend on the matter of impacts on the experiences. This might be having many additional factors with impact the research findings and the positivist nature of the research philosophy that is failing to acknowledge the effects of these factors. There might be some additional factors that impact the positivist research philosophy in acknowledging the effects of these factors (Ikram and Kenayathulla, 2022). Secondly, positivist research is taking assumptions on the procedure to be able to perceive and ascertain the kind of variation about the individuals and relationships in the matter of discussing the philosophy of the research.

Research paradigm

The research paradigm is based on the methods or patterns for conducting research on the petrol gas crisis in Bulgaria. There are three parts to the research paradigm which help to understand the derivation from the methodology. Ontology parts of the research paradigm reflect that Bulgaria needs about 3 billion cubic meters of gas to run its country in a year. Near about 1 billion gas is used to continue the heating plants and the rest amount is used by the other industries of Bulgaria. In 2022 Bulgaria faced a problem regarding the management of petrol gas. The reality of the crisis is the country facing problems handling the communication pressure. The question is about the reality of the gas crisis (Quintino et al. 2023). The crisis impact is high on the fertilizer production sector and the metal industry along with the public communication sector.The epistemology of the paradigm reflects the public's belief that is the reason for the communication. The public belief reflects the communication problems in Bulgaria. The epistemology shows that it is interpretive because the study is based on interviews with the citizens of Bulgaria. The information about the communication affected is gathered through articles and journals.

Resource	Research method	Research findings	Significance
Pargov, (2022)	Secondary data on petrol and gas crisis seen in Bulgaria	The gas company of Bulgaria is able to launch the tendency to ensure the long-term nature of security.	This country is considering the opening way for the pipeline gas from aiming to buy 130-150 percent gas in the case of suppliers failing to deliver the cheapest prices in spotting the markets to supply those components.
Interview	Primary research	Bulgaria has faced issues in distributing petrol and gas services, which is essential for managing proper communication structure here.	The PR and communication management are essential for delivering properly which is sought during the 142 million cubic meters of gas before November 2022. The companies are also looking for offerings in have the capacity to supply LNG services through 2023 with cubic meters of 1.5 billion.
Islamli, (2022)	Secondary data	Bulgaria seems to have consumed 3 bcm amount of gas in a year and is receiving 1 bcm in the long-term management of keeping contact.	The preferred way of looking for ways in which people can be able to procure through the pipelines is looking to conclude the proper agreements while trying to cover up the consumption.

Research Approach

The research is done on the information gathered through the interview which is conducted in Bulgaria. The interview provides different types of information regarding the petrol gas crisis in Bulgaria. In addition to the interview, the information was also collected from the articles that helped to understand the reasons behind the crisis in Bulgaria. The approach of this research is to collect useful information regarding the shortage of petrol gas within the country. The useful correct information helps to understand the problems faced by the public in this crisis and how they manage to overcome the situation in daily life.

Research method

The aim of the research is to collect the right information regarding the crisis. The research is conducted in the qualitative method. The information is gathered from several journals and articles to analyze the severity of the crisis. In addition to articles and journals, interviews are also conducted to collect the right information regarding the gas crisis that helps to overcome these problems regarding the crisis of petrol gas. In-depth and detailed interview regarding the problems arising in Bulgaria helps to get information about the crisis and the effects of the crisis on daily life. The research is done in a descriptive manner.

Figure 3: Onion Method

The research is conducted in the onion theory to collect the exact data from the information and this right data helps in analyzing the problems and the ways to overcome the problems. Firstly the irrelevant data is eliminated from the whole data. Then the data regarding the crisis and the reasons behind the sudden petrol gas crunch is used to determine the problems of the crisis and its effects on public relations and public transport (Gilbert et al. 2021). The research method provides the relevant information which solves the purpose of the research. Articles and journals are also part of the relevant source that provides the exact data and information about the effect of the petrol gas crisis. The information helps in coming up with ideas for handling any type of situation that happened in Bulgaria. The collected data is not numeric so it helps to understand the overall scenario of the crisis related to petrol and gas. During the research process, the interview is done on the ground level to collect exact information about the people of Bulgaria (Alam, 2021). By applying the onion theory to the research relevant data is collected. The onion theory is the best approach to collecting data which is relevant to evaluate the problems of the crisis of petrol crisis in Bulgaria.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research refers to the method through which the market of the concerned industry research is performed through various interviews. These are also obtainable through open communications and ample interviews that reveal information and views regarding the matter (L. Haven and Van Grootel, 2019). The in-depth review of the interviews provided by the locale and the concerned people unveils the perceptions and the behavior of the customers towards the crisis that the organization is currently facing. The vivid perceptions are gathered in several ways. In-depth interview regarding the matter of concern and ethnographic research helps in the process of gathering useful information on the identification of the issues faced by the organizations (Hennink and Kaiser, 2022). The research achieved through case study review helps to evaluate the incidents that infer more deep concerns of the organization.

The results derived through the research are descriptive in nature and help to get the inferences more conveniently. Additionally, the precise information that one-on-one interviews deliver does not get fulfilled when group discussions take place. The data collection method for the qualitative method is non-numeric which helps to determine how decisions are concluded with detailed perception (Aspers and Corte, 2019). After the successful collection of the data, the information is collected for analysis that reveals important issues that need to be resolved to overcome the situations. During this process, entire observation and interviews are considered as the ground on which the analysis is performed. It is through this procedure that the researcher gets to know the issues and evaluate the potential solution that can help the organization get out of the situation.

Research Strategy

Reviewing the crisis management regarding petrol and gas in Bulgaria it is decided that qualitative analysis is a great approach to identifying the problems of the people in the crisis. The research collects data from the public by conducting an interview. The primary data collection in this study has been helpful in gathering notable insights regarding the communication and PR crisis that came forth during the events of the petrol crisis in Bulgaria. Furthermore, evidence has also been gathered from online sources like research articles and journals to ponder on the scale of the impact of this crisis on the business ambiance of the country.

Inducting New Strategies

Research strategies are needed for developing proper communication strategies in developing the procedure of making sure that the pipelines seen in the country Bulgaria are facing a serious crisis in the year 2022. These new strategies are required for managing to develop necessary research procedures to scramble in procuring 2 billion cubic meters of the gas which is having huge quantity to lack the meetings of annual procedure for consumption. The suppliers of the country are maintaining the shipments with the additional suppliers in delivering the gas through the pipelines for Bulgaria following proper strategies

Sampling (target population and sampling strategy)

The research is done on the ground level to get knowledge about the problems of the people. This research also helps to understand the effects of the petrol and gas crisis on normal life. The people who are related to various industries as well as who are part of the communication system take part in the interview. To save time the interview is conducted on the streets of Bulgaria. That process helps in gathering more information in less time.

Data collection

As per Ivanova and Dospatliev, (2023) the collected data is in a qualitative measure that helps to understand the basic problem raised by the shortage of petrol and gas in Bulgaria. The shortage affects public relations and communication in Bulgaria. By conducting the interview various data are collected. The data helps to understand the problems and the ways to reduce the crisis. An analysis of the data which are collected evaluates the possible outcome of the crisis due to the shortage of gas and petrol.

Data analysis

In Bulgaria, there are different issues that have been raised during the crisis of petroleum. Here the primary qualitative method has been applied and from this methodology, different data are collected by considering different tools. Moreover, the data can show the summarized ideas about this topic and also an analysis can be done easily through this collected data. First of all, this country is facing different types of issues with petrol distribution and gas services (Liadze et al. 2022). Due to the lack of petrol distribution, the essential product pricing increases very much and on the other hand, the transportation system is increased their fare for maintaining services. The demand is very high and the government cannot fulfill its requirements within a specific time. Drivers are concerned about these issues and they are gathered to collect the oil rapidly (Hristov and Zaneva-Dobranova, 2021). Secondly from the collection data, the identifying part is an international trade and international trade has been disturbed due to this crisis. International trade offers a good economic balance and it creates a healthy relationship between economic and social factors.

This data helps to understand the trading crisis and due to Russia Ukraine war, the price of petrol has increased very much. These higher energy prices have raised inflation, pushed families into poverty, closed different factories, and lastly, hampered the economic growth of this country (Mur?ra?u and Bujor, 2022). This would be a devastating problem for all the ordinary people as well as the government. On the other hand, after the pandemic, the price of petroleum has increased and that is why the price of essential things has also increased. In addition, the war has also hampered the current economic scenario of the European countries and Bulgaria has faced critical challenges regarding the shortage of petroleum gas (Mbah and Wasum, 2022). Communication management plays an important to overcome the issue and on the other hand, the public relations sector also helps to overcome this issue.

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Reliability and validity / Trustworthiness and positionality

The collected data is reliable because the data are collected from the people who are suffering from the crisis. The collected data is completely based on interviews and articles. The articles help to understand the problems faced by the people of Bulgaria. As per Be?er, (2019) the data analysis is done precisely and exhaustively which makes the study trustworthy. The detailed analysis makes the data credible. Depending on the data good management can be done to avoid such problems. The honesty of the collected data makes it more trustworthy to the reader. The research becomes more valid, reliable, and trustworthy by eliminating the data that is irrelevant to the crisis of gas and petrol and the management of such problems.

Results

The year 2022 was highly problematic for the Bulgarian economic part. They are highly affected by the penalty and the detrimental relations that occur with Moscow. This country has faced detrimental challenges since the country was fully reliant on the energy which is imported from Russia. This crisis has pushed the country into an utmost difficult situation. The conflict between the Russia and EU arose up in March 2022 followed by the conquering of Ukraine which happened in late February (Bereznoy, 2021). Thus Russia and the major EU got engaged in a fight. This causes the occurrence of issues in the payment for the pipeline and thus the natural gas is exported to Europe by Russia's Gazprom". In the month of June Russia cuts down the flow of gas by more than half and in the month of July it totally stopped. In the year of September 2022, "North Stream 1 and 2" gas pipelines cracked and thus vandalized.

There was a shortage of gas supply, especially from Germany, Austria, Netherlands, and Italy. This resulted in the hike of the prices of natural gas mainly happened in "September 2022".This crisis has recorded a deep shortage of energy and also creates evidence of inflation. This overall had a negative impact on the EU in the year. Bulgaria has proven to have reserves of about 1.7 times its annual consumption (Barth-Obi, 2022). That is they have about 2 years of gas consumption. There was a rise in the price that caused an impact on buying from the gasoline market. Crude oil prices have increased to $40 per barrel within 1 Year. This energy crisis of the year 1979 led to the construction of smaller and fuel-efficient vehicles. Generally, the gas crisis occurs because of different economic factors like "rapid post-pandemic rebound' which leads to the cause of the mishap. This accelerates global imbalance in the year 2022. European countries usually more amount of money for "wholesale natural gas" because the gas industry has bolstered the Russian gas resources has demolished and there was no replacement of it.

In spite of the higher inflation rate, economic activities continue to grow in the year 2022. These are encouraged in the exports also by the wages and social transfers' which are augmented and those are reimbursed with the consumer's price. Private utilization has decreased in the first half of the year because of the expansion of the accumulated price. More care and improvement have to be focused to quickly solve the problem and to get back to the situation. During the time of the first census, there was a sharp decline in the Bulgarian population. There was a lower birth rate, a rise in death % and more migration observed and there was shrinkage of this country. According to Kim (2020), after the COVID-19 period, there was a recovery of 7.6% in the "GDP" hike in the year 2021. The economic activity in Bulgaria has shown a sharp decline in the year 2022.

From the interview, it was found there was a flow in inflation, and a high rise in the interest rates was observed. There were shortages in external demand and thus there was degeneration in the e-commerce areas. The misbalance in the economy leads to a decrease in the development of the Bulgarian economy which leads to the establishment of the IMF World Bank and other banks. From the interview, it was found that Bulgaria ingests about 3 billion cubic meters per year, and "90% " of these gases are being imported by Russia. At present Bulgaria is receiving natural gas from Azerbaijan and also from Greece but this cannot be considered well-grounded because Greece also purchases Gas from Russia. Many ancillary industries like bakeries, municipal hospitals social homes, and other households are heavily affected by the crisis. Many employees of the company are suffering the issues of termination as a consequence of this. As a result of no alternatives for this situation, there is a hike in the price of other commodities. As a result of this crisis, there are higher prices at about a 50% hike in the market price of energy and a rise in the price of commodities by about 20%. From the "wiiw"s forecast", Bulgaria is regarded as the country with more rise in the EU and this is not only for 2022 but also for the year 2023. It was expected there would be a decline to about 8% and 5 %respectively from the 3% and 2% in the Euro section (Bereznoy, 2022). Bulgarian National Bank is taking measures to protect the country from the injurious effects that have risen from the war in Ukraine. There was a sharp depreciation in the fixed investment areas which started in the year 2021 and still continuing in the year 2022.

GDP is estimated to increase by 3.9% by the year 2022. Due to the rise of the imbalance of energy, the cost of fuel has been soaring. More mitigation steps have to be undertaken to make a quick recovery from this crisis and if proper measures are not taken there would be a rise in the commodities day by day. Many employees are deprived of money and even commit suicide (Rawat et al. 2020). An alternative method is to find out for complete elimination of the negative impact on the country. Immediate action -plans have to be discussed with the aim of a quick recovery from the crisis.

They are taking liquefied gas from other countries to eliminate the problems. The excess consumption of energy has to be decreased to a much lesser extent until the problems are solved (Cetera et al. 2023). In the year 2020 Bulgarian Government got approval for the "state-owned gas transmission system operator" to take a 20% interest in Gasreade-the company's development. Development factors are taken by them to solve this huge complication.

Analysis and Discussion of Results/Findings

While proceeding with this research paper regarding the ongoing crisis in Bulgaria relating to petrol or natural gas, for asserting public relations and crisis communication management, two managers were interviewed. Each of the managers was presented with three sets of questions.

The first question was - how their country was affected by the ongoing petrol crisis in the country. The first manager talked about the issue at the international level that Bulgaria had to face. Bulgaria mainly used to import crude petrol from Russia (Bowden 2022). Besides Russia, the other exporters include Romania, Greece, and Serbia. However, after the Russia – Ukraine war, Russia would not be exporting anything to Bulgaria then it became a headache for Bulgaria to look for cheaper alternatives. Because of the disruption in the import chain, the country faced a lot of problems in order to maintain its constant supply of refined petrol to importers like Turkey, Gibraltar, Italy, and Tunisia. This impacted their relationship with both the importers and the exporters and affected the balance of payment of the country (Kandilarov 2019). The second manager talked about the rising problem at the domestic level. He talked about the rising food and energy price hikes. He also showed how the situation worsened within different departments of the country.

The second question was how the communication management of Bulgaria and its associated organizations were impacted because of the crisis. Both of them talked about how the businesses were hampered because of an impact on the daily commute and transport system. As companies dealing in logistics were finding it difficult to keep their card fueled up – it was creating delays in the delivery of products and how deadlines were missed - which was affecting relationships between different organizations.

And ultimately they were asked what steps would they have suggested in order to get faster results. The first manager talked about the implementation of alternative sources of energy (Can and Korkmaz, 2019). The government should take an active role in promoting measures which would help transport. The second manager talked about introducing alternate options that would help promote collaborative relationships between different business organizations.

The year 2022 was highly problematic for the Bulgarian economic part. They are highly affected by the penalty and the detrimental relations that occur with Moscow (Rawat et al. 2023). This country has faced detrimental challenges since the country was fully reliant on the energy which is imported from Russia. The conflict with the Russia and EU arose in March 2022 followed by the conquering of Ukraine which happened in late February. Bulgaria has proven to have reserves of about 1.7 times its annual consumption (Stanoeva, 2020). That is they have about 2 years of gas consumption. There was a rise in the price that caused an impact on buying from the gasoline market. Crude oil prices have increased to $40 per barrel within 1 Year. This energy crisis of the year 1979 led to the construction of smaller and fuel-efficient vehicles.

Thus Russia and the major EU got engaged in a fight. This causes the occurrence of issues in the payment for the pipeline and thus the natural gas is exported to Europe by Russia's Gazprom". In the month of June Russia cut down the flow of gas by more than half and in the month of July it totally stopped (Liu et al. 2022). From the wiiw’s forecast, Bulgaria is regarded as the country with more rises in the EU and this is not only for 2022 but also for the year 2023. This crisis has pushed the country into an utmost difficult situation.

Figure 4: Russian Gas imports

The gas import measurement is described well in the graph.GDP is estimated to increase by 3.9% by the year 2022. Due to the rise of the imbalance of energy, the cost of fuel has been soaring.GDP has been estimated to augment by 3.9% by the year "2022". In the year 2020, "Bulgaria" 's Government got approval for the "state-owned gas transmission system operator" to take a "20%" interest in Gasreade-the company's development. With the aim to mitigate the problems, they are taking liquified gas from other countries. Due to the rise of the imbalance of energy, the cost of fuel has been soaring. At present, Bulgaria is receiving natural gas from Azerbaijan and also from Greece but this cannot be considered well-grounded because Greece also purchases Gas from Russia. Thus they are seeking some alternatives to these problems. There was a sharp depreciation in the fixed investment areas which started in the year 2021 and still continuing in the year 2022.GDP is estimated to increase by 3.9% by the year 2022 (Lozada-Contreras et al. 2022). This country is aiming to make its own gas plant at this point in time and they have to augment this plant.

Figure 5: Energy sources of Bulgaria

The energy sources of Bulgaria are depicted here in a graphical representation. They have to aim now to import any sort of gas from other countries. A result of the hike ultimately led to a liquidity injection for providing assistance to the banking sectors. Bulgaria is showing a sharp decline in the population tally due to the lower birth % and many of the citizens are migrating to different countries (Shah et al. 2022). The government has to take steps; a lot of funding systems need to be arranged for the recovery of the country

Conclusions and implications for theory and/or policy

The crisis RP and management and communication management practices are necessary to consider and assess the criticality of a situation. In the case of the petrol gas crises of Bulgaria, the situation worsened over time impacting the resource management of the country as well as its trade relations. At that time the prevailing condition of the political turmoil that prevailed at that time due to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine also emboldened the situation for the communication and crisis PR which led to traction in the public sphere of the businesses involved in the industry along with other operational sectors in the country. Interpretivism approach was taken to address this ongoing social issue of Bulgaria, which the country was facing because of a disruption in the supply chain of crude petrol and how that affected the country’s Public relationships at the International as well as the domestic level. Focuses were made on understanding the complexities of the situation and how people are dealing with it. Interviews were conducted and the data collected was interpreted scientifically in order to come up with the conclusion discussed in this research paper.

The data that was collected and used in this research paper was qualitative data, which includes sources of information like One-on-one interviews – People were asked questions during their personal interview process to know about their views regarding how the country or its people were being affected by this petroleum price hike. Two managers' reactions could be mentioned here – one of them brought forward about the International Relationship that was hampered and another one of them talked about increasing reliance on alternative sources of energy. Several open-ended surveys were conducted with open-ended questionnaires to accommodate those interviews. Spaces were left for people to fill up with their opinions or perspectives.

The Strategic Crisis Planning opted for this research paper followed the Onion Model structure (OMSCP). This study done here aims at proposing a knowledge management model which deals with issues in a systematic manner. This explores the basic linkage that leads to organizational preparedness for crisis management. While looking for the problems faced by the common people in the country questions were asked which would make people aware of their problems. Then when the people were coming up or addressing their basic problems then with further questioning their issues were again questioned in order to get a clear look at the core of the problem. Like slowly-slowly if we remove the peels of the onion then we would reach the core of it – similarly, several questions people were explored to make them better aware of the core of the problem that they were facing because of this ongoing problem that was created because of hike in petrol price and gas crisis inside the country.

Most people said that because of the gas crisis, they were finding it very difficult to perform their daily activities. But when they were further asked it revealed how their life was affected. As petrol is an important resource for each and every sector of the country, because of the petrol crisis the market saw very high inflation, and the purchasing power of the common people was affected. Then on the organizational level how the relationship between different businesses was hampered because of the delay in the supply chain was discussed.

While proceeding with the necessary research works for this paper some drawbacks were faced. When the managers were interviewed to understand the impact of the energy crisis and how their public relationship was hampered then they just provided us with some general sets of ideas. Had it been like that, we were provided with the facts and numbers from inside the organization, and then we could have come to a proper conclusion. A similar thing was also faced while surveying the impacts that the present government had to face because of this problem. The government told us about their future plans for the ongoing project d Greece–Bulgaria Interconnector, but we were not provided with any kind of data that included facts and figures. When asked about how much the trade between the importers and exporters was hampered regarding the petroleum crisis they did not give us any actual sales figures. If it had been done in other ways then this research could have come up with more accurate results that could have helped in further studies regarding this issue. It could have better helped other people who want to proceed with a similar research topic in the future if we could have conducted more fact-based research.

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