The project documentation for the construction of the gas pipeline is not yet complete, but the location and building permits will be issued in phases. It is not clear who will be the prime contractor.
Permits for the pipeline “South Stream” will be issued in phases. The investor has obtained location permit for the site opening near Kovilje, while the building permit, which was recently awarded to the company “South Stream”, is only for the preparatory works, because the project documentation is not yet complete. Actually, making the detailed design by the sections is in progress. Works start on 24 November, but “full steam” of the constructiom won’t be until the spring.
“South Stream” through Serbia in fact still has no general contractor, and a tender is expected to be announced soon. It will be one contractor, elected in a closed proceeding. The proposal for it is to be a consortium of Russian and Serbian companies.
After Sofia, Belgrade, Milan, Ljubljana, and Budapest has also hosted a conference on “South Stream”. Minister of national development of the country, Zsuzsa Nemeth said that Hungarians have experienced the hard way what it means to have problems in gas supply in 2009. That is why the “South Stream” has the full political support, because the pipeline will increase the energy security of the country. Hungary as well as Serbia declared “South Stream” a national project.
Aleksanadar Siromiatin, representative of “Gazprom”, said in Budapest that the transmission pipeline capacity is 63 billion cubic meters of gas per year and it will provide heat for the 38 million households in Europe. The next conference on “South Stream” should be organized in Brussels.
Construction “worries” the British
It seems that the British are most interested in what happens to the Serbian part of the “South Stream”. Representatives of the British Embassy in Budapest and Vienna, on Monday at a conference on “South Stream”, were approaching the Russians with one question – who is going to build the “South Stream” in Serbia?
Source; Serbia Energy
