Russian gas company Gazprom announced that its natural gas deliveries to Serbia in the JanuaryMay 2017 period has increased by 42.2 % compared to the same period last year, without disclosing the exact volume of its gas exports to Serbia.
CEO of Gazprom Alexey Miller and Serbian Minister of Mining and Energy Aleksandar Antic have met at the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, where they have discussed the need to establish additional routes for gas supplies to the European market, as well as further development of gas infrastructure in Europe.
Minister Antic said after the meeting that Serbia currently has no outstanding debt to Russia for natural gas imports, adding that the state has paid in full the debt previously owed by gas distributor Srbijagas, which was about 400 million euros, and additional 250 million euros owed by petrochemical plant Petrohemija. He stressed that this is the first time in recent history that Serbia does not owe a single dollar for the delivery of natural gas.
Also, Srbijagas and Gazprom have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the expansion of underground gas storage facility in Banatski Dvor. The statement from Gazprom said that this MoU envisages the possibility of the capacity of Banatski Dvor gas storage to 750 million cubic meters, from current 450 million. Gazprom is the majority owner of Banatski Dvor underground gas storage with 51 % stake, while the remaining 49 % is owned by Srbijagas, In 2016, Gazprom delivered a total 1.75 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Serbia, which is 4.3 % more than in 2015.
