Together with three other companies from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and Albania, Montenegro Bonus will be one of the founders of the Ionian-Adriatic Gas Pipeline company, which will perform tasks related to the preparation of the construction of the gas pipeline that will pass through those four countries.
The founding capital of the new company will amount to EUR 80,000, and Montenegro Bonus will have the same ownership share as the other three companies, ie 25%, writes Vesti.
The headquarters of the joint company will be in Split.
Since it is necessary to pay 20,000 EUR for the founding capital, the Ministry of Capital Investments will propose that this money be provided from the current budget reserve and that the Government approve it, and the opinion of the Agency for the Protection of Competition (AZK) was previously requested regarding compliance with the Law on Control state aid.
AZK stated in its opinion that this EUR 20,000 for the founding capital would represent aid of a small value, in accordance with the regulations governing issues of state aid.
As stated in the AZK document, the Ionian-Adriatic Gas Pipeline (IAP) project is planned to connect the Albanian city of Fiera and the Croatian Split with a gas pipeline.
The IAP would then be an integral part of the Trans-Adriatic gas pipeline, where gas from Azerbaijan is delivered via Turkey and Greece to Italy.
The expected total length of the gas pipeline is about 511 kilometers, of which the section through Montenegro is about 96 kilometers long, and 37 kilometers of the pipeline would be laid under the sea.
15 years ago, the ministries of Croatia, Albania and Montenegro, responsible for the field of energy, launched an initiative for the construction of IAP by signing a declaration, which was later joined by Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In 2013, the Montenegrin Government determined the Montenegro Bonus for transmission gas operators, and then in 2018, in Azerbaijan, representatives of gas transmission system operators of the aforementioned countries signed a letter of intent to establish a company.
After that, the Croatian company Plinacro submitted to the signatory companies the draft of the company’s statutes, for the purpose of giving consent.
– This company would be founded by state-owned enterprises of the participating countries in the IAP project – Plinacro from Croatia, Albgaz from Albania, Montenegro Bonus from Montenegro, BH Gas from Bosnia and Herzegovina, with an equal share in the company and headquarters in Split. The company would carry out tasks related to the preparation of the construction of the gas pipeline that will pass through the mentioned countries, promoting and implementing activities of general interest to the contracting parties of the project, such as communication with EU authorities, participation in the working groups of competent authorities, cooperation with international bodies – the opinion reads.
It is added that each member of the project reserves the right to independently perform the work of preparation, construction and management of the gas pipeline related to the part of the project that is located on the territory of the country where the member has its headquarters.
On the website of the Croatian company Plinacro, it is stated that the planned completion of the project is in 2025, and that the capacity of the future gas pipeline is five billion cubic meters per year, of which the supply of natural gas in Montenegro would amount to 500 million.
It was also stated that the entire project would enable the opening of a new energy corridor for the region of Central and Southeastern Europe and the Western Balkans.
The European Union (EU) included IAP in the list of projects of common interest of the Energy Community, while this undertaking is also on the unique list of priority infrastructure projects, which was adopted by the Government in 2019, eKapija writes.
