BELGRADE, February 1. /TASS/. The situation with energy supplies in Serbia remains stable as Russia’s Gazprom has secured additional gas volumes, Serbia’s Deputy Prime Minister Zorana Mihajlovic said on Tuesday.
She was speaking at a ceremony marking the start of construction of a gas interconnector between Bulgaria and Serbia.
"The energy situation is stable, if we talk about Serbia, primarily thanks to the work of the government and the provision of the necessary funds. Of course, part of the electricity consumed is imported and will be imported in the coming days. Additional gas volumes have been provided by Gazprom, so we have enough electricity, gas, thermal energy, and this will be the case in the coming months," the minister said.
"We are living in a period of the pandemic and an unprecedented energy crisis. If we had not opened our section of the Balkan Stream on January 1, 2021, connected with Bulgaria to receive another source from which we take Russian gas, we would have met this winter in cold houses, our economy would suffer, because there would definitely not be enough gas, and prices would be much higher. The fact that we sped up the construction of the Balkan Stream during 2020, investing 1.5 billion euros, has given us energy security and stability today," Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said in her turn.
The Prime Minister also noted that Serbia is working on diversifying gas sources, creating an opportunity to receive liquefied natural gas as well. Brnabic noted the importance of an interconnector between Bulgaria and Serbia, which will allow Serbia "to receive liquefied gas from Greece, gas from Azerbaijan and from any other sources."
"We are creating a diversification of gas sources, which will allow us to have price competition," the Prime Minister said.
About the project
The gas interconnector between Bulgaria and Serbia is expected to be ready by October 2023. The total cost of the project is 85.5 million euros. The sources of financing include a 25 million euro loan from the European Investment Bank, 49.6 million euros of non-repayable assistance from EU funds, and 10.3 million euros allocated from the Serbian budget and 600,000 euros by Srbiyagaz. The capacity of the interconnector will be 1.8 billion cubic meters per year.
On January 1, 2021, Gazprom began supplying gas to Serbia via a new route. Gas is transported from Russia via the TurkStream offshore gas pipeline and further through Turkey. After that it flows to Serbia through the national gas transmission system of Bulgaria. The length of the section running through the territory of Serbia is 403 km, and the design capacity is 13.9 billion cubic meters per year.
Negotiations on gas supply
Earlier, President Aleksandar Vucic said that Serbia expects to receive additional volumes of gas from Russia in January-February 2022.
"I believe that we will receive from our Russian partners a larger quantity for January and February 2022 than envisaged, so that we will receive an incomparably lower price even for this additional quantity, which was not discussed earlier and which we did not need in 2020 and 2021," the Serbian leader said. Vucic said that every day Serbia has to buy from 2 to 5 million cubic meters gas. On November 25, 2021, as a result of talks between Putin and Vucic in Sochi, Russia kept Serbia's gas price at $270 for six winter months. After that Belgrade will receive favorable terms from Moscow under a long-term contract. According to the Serbian leader, these conditions are exceptional.