The Oil Industry of Serbia NIS is very interested in building a new gas storage in Srpski Itebej, near Zrenjanin. NIS is majority owned by Russian energy giant Gazprom.
NIS would be prepared to invest in this project on its own, or, if the Serbian Government decides otherwise, to share the job with interested partners – most probably with “Serbiagas”, which already announced the investment in this second gas storage two years ago, “The Politics” has found out from the sources close to this oil company.
The storage capacity has been estimated at one billion cubic meters. Considering the yesterday’s announcement of Dušan Bajatović, general manager of “Serbiagas”, that the construction of the second phase of the gas storage in Banatski Dvor should begin this year, and perhaps even the construction of Srpski Itebej (which is around two billion cubic meters of gas), this would bring Serbia in the position of a regional player. In this way, Serbia would almost entirely cover its domestic needs for gas amounting to 2.1 to 2.5 billion cubic meters annually.
Although it is assumed that the new storage could also be filled with domestic gas, exploited by NIS, it has been found out unofficially that NIS will use these domestic quantities of gas for producing electricity in its refinery in Pančevo, and that Itebej will be filled with the Russian gas.
After the decision of the European Commission to exclude Serbia from the emergency plan for gas supply in crisis situations, although our country was the first to join the European Energy Community, we are left with no other option but to use the domestic potential, and Itebej is this potential. The issue of long-term and regular gas supply, not only in crisis situations when Ukraine stops the deliveries of the Russian gas, would be solved in this way, transmitas Serbia-energy.eu
