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After 10 years of delays, the agreement on building interconnection between Bulgaria’s and Serbia’s gas grids finally signed

Date: March 10^th 2010 Author: Dragan Obradović, Belgrade Category: Articles
Topic: Natural gas

On March 5, Serbia and Bulgaria signed an agreement on building a pipeline between the two countries. The agreement was signed at European Commission headquarters in Brussels. In a joint declaration, Serbian Minister of Mining and Energy Petar Skundric, Bulgarian Economy Minister Traicho Traykov, and high officials from the European Energy Commissioner’s office agreed that the agreement between the two countries was a proper role model in light of applying energy security programmes into practice.

According to Skundric, the signed agreement is part of the national plan for gasification of Serbia and part of the objective to make Serbia a vital gas pipeline junction by means of building gas interconnections with the neighbouring countries. Minister further said that signing the agreement was a good thing which represented vital integration of the Western Balkans within European energy system and had additionally approximated Serbia to the European Union.

Ministers Traicho Traykov and Petar Skundric after signing of joint declaration; PHOTO: Balkanmagazin

The pipeline will be built on the route Nis – Dimitrovgrad – Dubnica and will total 180 kilometres in length. The 120-million Euro investment would be financed by means of subsidies with the help of the EU, Director of Srbijagas Dusan Bajatovic said. He emphasized that the respective pipeline would open new energy opportunities for Serbia, above all in light of gas storage connections and construction of gas power plants. The contractor to build the pipeline section crossing Serbia is said to be the company Jugorosgas.

The scope of the project is to build a pipeline with the capacity of two billion cubic metres of gas a year, whereby the interconnection between Bulgaria and Serbia is expected to transport the first gas in 2013. A feasibility study for the project which is an integral part of the joint gas system is to be completed by autumn of this year. EU Funds are to provide financial aid in setting up and building the pipeline in question. Philip Lowe, a representative of the European Commission and Deputy of Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger believes that gas interconnections between Serbia and Bulgaria are at the same time of strategic and commercial nature and of great importance for both countries. He underlined that it was a two-way gas transport route which signified promotion of integrated gas.

Gas interconnection between Bulgaria and Serbia is to supply Russian gas onto the market and will – via Bulgarian interconnection with Turkey for which the agreement has not been signed yet – also include supply of gas from Asian sources. According to EC representative, the agreement on pipeline construction was a proper response of Sofia and Belgrade to last year’s gas crisis which affected both countries rather harshly.

Traykov reminded that Bulgaria had already signed two gas agreements with its neighbours – Greece and Romania – and that the third agreement which they were to sign with Serbia would contribute to a more stable supply from diversified sources and was also a step towards establishing a functional gas market.

Now that Europe was interested in interconnectedness among gas grids of the countries in the Balkans, the project was gaining on its weight, and the construction of the pipeline in question would result in proper supply for Serbian consumers, Vojislav Vuletic, PhD, Secretary General of Gas Association with the Serbian Chamber of Commerce said. Currently, gas is fed into the Serbian gas grid from one source only, namely from Horgos via Hungary, which according to Vuletic is not secure, as any congestion in the main pipelines would leave all pipeline connections downstream without gas.

The construction of the pipeline from Nis to Dimitrovgrad and the interconnection with Bulgarian gas grid were planed over 10 years ago, yet the construction was not undertaken, as gas consumption dropped steeply and the project was no longer economically viable.

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