Serbia might terminate Russian gas transit via the Ukraine
The Government of Serbia plans to double the volumes of the “Banatsky yard” gas storage.
Serbiagas thinks about significantly increasing the capacity of the “Banatsky yard” gas storage. If now its maximum volume is 450 mln cubic m of gas a year, it is planned to be increased to 1.2 bln. This is a half of the total volume of gas consumption in the country.
The project is planned to be realized along with Gazprom which holds the controlling stake of the “Banatsky yard”. Thus Serbia will be able to settle the problem with gas supply in the near future. In 4 years Russia might stop pumping gas via the Ukraine as by that time the contract expires.
Serbiagas said that the country needs to be provided with the sufficient volume of gas as now the country doesn’t have alternatives for fuel supply. So the Government admits such a variant as the additional source of supplies – reserving the additional volumes at the Hungarian gas storages. There is a preliminary agreement with Hungary.