Serbia plans to purchase up to 3.5 million cubic meters of gas a day from a liquefied gas terminal in the Greek port city of Alexandroupolis and then transfer it via a connecting gas pipeline through Bulgaria, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday
BELGRADE (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th March, 2023) Serbia plans to purchase up to 3.5 million cubic meters of gas a day from a liquefied gas terminal in the Greek port city of Alexandroupolis and then transfer it via a connecting gas pipeline through Bulgaria, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday.
"We have discussed better accessibility of Alexandroupolis (gas terminal) with our Greek partners, so that we can use it as soon as we finish the connecting gas pipeline in October, where we could get 3-3.5 million cubic meters daily if necessary," Vucic told a press conference after a meeting with Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, who is currently in Serbia for a three-day visit.
Serbia is storing 528 million cubic meters of gas reserves with an option to store another 100 million cubic meters in the Russian part of Banatski Dvor underground gas storage, Vucic said. Belgrade also has a contract with Hungary to fill rented storage, according to the Serbian leader.
All together, Serbia will be able to fill 700 million cubic meters of gas reserves, which has never happened before, Vucic added.
Since 2021, energy prices in EU countries have been surging as part of a global trend, forcing countries to look for alternatives to Russian natural gas in order to end their dependence on fossil fuels. Over the past two years, the Serbian government has been working with Bulgaria, Greece and Azerbaijan to secure supplies.
Currently, Russia is the only supplier of natural gas to Serbia. Belgrade, under a two-year contract with Gazprom, has secured about 2.2 billion cubic meters of gas per year, which is 62% of its annual demand.
In March 2022, Serbia began working on a pipeline section designed to transfer 1.4 billion cubic meters a year from Azerbaijan starting 2023. Another connecting pipeline, the Nis-Dimitrovgrad pipeline, is currently under construction in Serbia and is projected to transfer 1.8 billion cubic meters of gas from Bulgaria.
On October 1, 2022 Vucic attended the opening of a connecting pipeline between Greece and Bulgaria with a capacity of 3 billion cubic meters per year, which can be upgraded to transfer up to 5 billion cubic meters. On February 1, Bulgaria started to construct of a pipeline to transfer gas from Greece and Azerbaijan.
