Gas price of 488 dollars per 1.000 cubic which Serbia pays for gas to Russia is unacceptable and that price should be lower, Deputy Minister of Energy Petar Stanojevic stated.
“Gas price has to be lower, or we won’t use gas at all”, said Stanojevic to journalists after the opening of conference “Siemens- days of oil and gas”.
Stanojevic stated that Russian gas price for Europe is about 370 dollars per 1000 cubic according to Reuters’ prognosis. England buys gas for even 230 dollars per 100 cubic meters, added Stanojevic and asked if Serbia can be competitive to industries of developed countries which pay lower price.
Stanojevic said that Serbia is the only country in South East Europe that didn’t made contract for gas delivery this year, underlining that Srbijagas is in charge of it and that state can only help in it, not buy it or negotiate about it.
Bargaining about the price is left to gas companies, and contract is being made per one year, précised Stanojevic. He reminded that Serbia signed agreement with Russia about long-term gas delivery for 10 years where 5billion cubic of gas yearly was guaranteed for our country.
We don’t need 5billion cubic at the moment, because we spend 2, 2 billion cubic of gas, but we’ll need these gas amounts if we build up gas plants which would require about one billion cubic of gas, and if industry starts working intensively, we’ll need 200 to 300million cubic.
If gas is used for combined production of heating energy and electricity and if South Serbia gasification is done, 1 billion additional gas amounts will be necessary for Serbia, précised Stanojevic.
Source Serbia Energy Magazine