Serbian Minister of Mining and Energy Zorana Mihajlovic said that the political crisis in Ukraine will have an impact on the energy and financial stability of the whole continent, but Serbia has secured sufficient quantities of gas for the economy and households.
Minister Mihajlovic underlined that the priority of Serbia is to diversify the gas suppliers, to expand and build new underground gas storage facilities and to prepare a regional crisis plan and strategic reserves of this energy source. The country is safe in the current situation, but in order to ensure security in the decades ahead of us, we must expand the storage facility in Banatski Dvor and start building a new underground storage facility in Itebej, which is part of the Serbia 2025 plan.
She added that the Serbian idea was to try to make common strategic gas reserves with Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria and that it had been discussed with the Bulgarian Prime Minister during his recent visit.
Regarding the construction of the interconnection with Bulgaria, Minister Mihajlovic said that, with the completion of that project, Serbia would be able to diversify the gas suppliers, further increasing the stability and opening the possibility of buying gas at lower prices. The works are financed by the EU and that everything was being done according to the rules and procedures of the European Union and the EIB.
In January 2019, Russian and Serbian gas companies Gazprom and Srbijagas have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the project for the capacity expansion of Banatski Dvor underground gas storage by 300 million cubic meters to a total of 750 million cubic meters with the maximum daily withdrawal capacity of up to 10 million cubic meters. Gazprom said in a statement that this MoU sets the main parameters of the planned expansion and enshrines the agreement between the two companies on the joint implementation of the project. It also said that during 2018, natural gas deliveries to Serbia rose by 1.2 % compared to the previous year to a total of 2.15 billion cubic meters. Gazprom holds 51 % stake in Banatski Dvor underground gas storage.
