State secretary at the Hungarian Ministry of Innovation and Technology Peter Kaderjak said that deliveries of Russian gas through the TurkStream pipeline to Hungary could first start in late 2021 or early 2022. Kaderjak noted that the gas pipeline connects Turkey directly with Russia under the Black Sea. The pipeline, also designed to bypass Ukraine, will be extended towards Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary.
In October 2019, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said that Hungary would launch a procedure by the end of that month to contract gas capacity through the Turkish Stream pipeline from 2021. He added that Hungary could take delivery of an annual 10 billion cubic meters of gas across the Serbian border. In June, Hungary and Serbia signed an intergovernmental agreement to cooperate on construction and operation of natural gas interconnection between the two countries. However, Hungarian natural gas transmission system operator announced last week that the launch of the binding open season for capacity on the new Serbian-Hungarian gas interconnector has been postponed due to prolonged finalization of the rulebook and will not start on 28 January as previously planned.
