With only 13 kilometers of gas pipelines on its territory and 85 that will be built Rumunija, Serbia will get a new supply route and a new source gauze.
The announced gas pipeline will be the second that Serbia will have with partners from the European Union, after a complete dependence on Russian gas for more than a quarter of a century, reports Radio Free Europe.
As announced, the gas pipeline will connect the hub in Mokrin in Serbia with the BRUA transport pipeline in Romania.
The Ministers of Energy of Serbia and Romania, Dubravke Đedović Handanović and Sebastian Burduža, signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the construction of a gas interconnector on August 5.
"Transgaz can provide gas transit (to Serbia) from the Caspian Sea, liquefied gas from terminals in Greece and Turkey, as well as gas that (Romania) will exploit in the Black Sea," Ion Sterian, executive director of the Romanian gas company, told Radio Free Europe. majority state-owned company Transgaz.
He clarifies that BRUA is not only a transit gas pipeline, but part of the Romanian national gas transportation system into which gas from domestic, Romanian production is also pumped.
"Romanian gas is exported through that pipeline," says Sterian.
Serbian energy expert Dragan Vlaisavljević points to the importance of the new gas connection between Serbia and Romania.
"One of the potential sources of gas that will be very important are the new gas plants in the Black Sea, which Romania will have at its disposal in the next decade," Vlaisavljević told RSE.
What is known about the pipeline?
According to the Memorandum signed in Kladovo, a border town in Serbia on the border with Romania, the gas pipeline will be two-way, so gas will be able to be transported to both countries.
The projected capacity, as announced by the Ministry of Energy of Serbia, will be "at least 1,6 million cubic meters of gas", and the section of the gas pipeline on the territory of Serbia should be completed by 2027.
As the director of the Romanian company Transgaz, Ion Sterian, told RFE/RL, the estimated value of the share through Romania is around 80-85 million euros.
"After the meeting with the director of Srbijagas (a public company in Serbia for gas trade), we will update all the prices and then we will have the exact value of the project," said Sterian.
He added that Romania will finance the section of the gas pipeline on its territory with its own funds, which are included in the company's planned development costs.
The Ministry of Energy of Serbia stated in its response to RSE that the construction of the gas pipeline section on the territory of Serbia will be financed by the public company Srbijagas.
Until the end of the article, that company did not respond to RSE's inquiry about how much the gas pipeline section in Serbia will cost and how it will be financed.
What does Serbia get?
In addition to reducing its own dependence on Russian gas, with the new connection, Serbia becomes an important transit country for the transport of gas to Central Europe.
"The construction of this gas pipeline will primarily contribute to the diversification of supply routes, which will lead to the provision of safe gas supply to the Serbian market," the Ministry of Energy of Serbia told RFE/RL.
They add that the connection with Romania will create the possibility to transport gas from that direction to Bosnia and Herzegovina, with which Serbia is already connected by gas pipelines, "as well as to the markets towards which gas interconnections are planned, which is, above all, North Macedonia ".
In this way, as previously announced by the ministry, Serbia "becomes an indispensable transit country and an important partner in ensuring the energy security of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe."
Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was met by Serbia completely dependent on Russian energy supplies. Following the example of the countries of the European Union (EU), whose membership it aspires to, it started looking for an alternative for Russian gas.
Energy expert Dragan Vlaisavljević told RFE/RL that an important factor is the fact that the gas pipeline will enable "gas delivery in one direction and in the other when needed for both markets."
"Very likely, there will be a much greater need for Serbia," he assesses.
When Romania completes the construction of a gas plant in the Black Sea, Serbia's gas connection with that country will ensure, in his opinion, "safe and secure gas supply for the needs of the economy and the population" in Serbia.
In December 2023, Serbia opened a gas interconnector with Bulgaria - from the Bulgarian city of Novi Iskar to Niš in the south of Serbia. It thus gained access to gas from Azerbaijan and to the liquid gas terminal in the Greek port of Alexandroupoli.
The capacity of the gas pipeline is 1,8 billion cubic meters per year, which represents more than half of Serbia's annual gas needs. However, the agreed quantities with Azerbaijan in 2024 are 400 million cubic meters of gas, which meets 13 percent of needs.
The plan is to increase deliveries to one billion cubic meters from 2027, which would cover a third of Serbia's needs.
Serbia annually imports 2,2 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia, which is almost three quarters of the current needs of three billion.
The three-year arrangement until 2025 was directly agreed upon by Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Russian President Vladimir Putin in May 2022, three months after Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine.
Serbia has not imposed sanctions on Russia, despite the fact that, as a candidate country for EU membership, it is obliged to gradually harmonize its foreign and security policy with the European one. Dependence on Russian energy sources was one of the main arguments of the authorities in Belgrade for such a position.
What does Romania get?
Unlike Serbia, which meets less than 13 percent of its gas needs from domestic production, Romania produces more gas than it needs.
Serbia is the only neighboring country with which Romania does not yet have a gas connection, and it is a new export market for Romanian gas, Eugenija Gušilov, founder of the Romanian Energy Center (ROEC), a think-thank from Bucharest, told RSE.
"Romania wants to diversify its potential export markets for the excess natural gas that it will exploit and produce from the Black Sea from 2027. Romania is primarily thinking about where it could supply or export gas closer to home," Gushilov assesses.
According to Transgaz, Romania currently produces almost twice as much gas as it needs.
It achieves the production of 24 million cubic meters of gas per day, while the needs are around 12,5 million.
The difference is mainly saved for consumption in the winter months, while daily there is one million to two cubic meters of gas left for export.
As Transgaz director Ion Sterian told RFE/RL, that will change when Romania starts exploiting gas from the Black Sea. Then, according to his words, the amount of domestic gas will increase significantly, and thus the possibility of export.
Source: Radio Free Europe
