BELGRADE, January 18. /TASS/. The agreement to expand the Banatski Dvor underground gas storage facility, sealed in a memorandum of understanding signed during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Serbia, will increase the reliability of gas supplies in the country during the cold season, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller has said.

"First of all, it should be noted that today’s document on the Banatski Dvor UGS is the final investment decision and this is very important," he said. "The offshoot pipeline from the UGS will be a part of infrastructure to be created as part of extending the TurkStream pipeline. As you understand, this is important, too, because the UGS is a very important element of gas supplies during the autumn/winter period."

Gazprom’s CEO Alexey Miller and Srbijagas CEO Dusan Bayatovic signed a memorandum of understanding on the expansion of the Banatski Dvor underground gas storage capacity on Thursday, January 17. The ceremony was attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin and President of the Republic of Serbia Alexander Vucic.

The Banatski Dvor expansion project envisages increasing the working gas capacity by 300 million cubic meters, to 750 million cubic meters. The maximum daily gas deliverability will be doubled from 5 million cubic meters to 10 million cubic meters.

"Those goals will be achieved in 2022," Miller said.

In 2017, Russia and Serbia agreed on long-term cooperation to expand the Serbian gas transportation system and prepare a feasibility study for the Banatski Dvor underground gas storage expansion project.

Srbijagas is the main partner of Gazprom in Serbia. Srbijagas is engaged in the transportation, storage and distribution of gas in the republic.

In 2018, Gazprom supplied 2.15 billion cubic meters of gas to Serbia, which is 1.2% more than in 2017 (2.12 billion cubic meters).