The Serbian Ministry of Mining and Energy foresees the possibility of an alternative supply of crude oil in its investment plan, in order to ensure a stable supply of crude oil and diversify supply routes.
One of the considered options is to connect to the Druzhba oil pipeline and build a connection with Hungary, which would imply that Serbia, in addition to other types of crude oil, will continue to rely on Russian oil imports, said Rasa Kojcic, Assistant Minister of Mining and of Energy, during an interview on Tanjug TV.
“There are two options for connecting to the Druzhba oil pipeline,” he said. “The first option would be the construction of the oil pipeline from Szeged to Aldja. The route of that oil pipeline, which would provide partial capacity for supplying the refinery in Pančevo, would be about 128 kilometres long, out of which 104kilometres are on the territory of Serbia and the second option for connection to the Druzhba oil pipeline near Budapest is the construction of an oil pipeline from Novi Sad to Sazhalombata which is 400 kilometres long.”
“The capacity of the oil pipeline would be in line with the refining capacity of the domestic refinery in Pancevo,” the Assistant Minister added. “The Ministry has already foreseen this possibility and included in its investment plan relevant projects that involve the construction of new oil pipelines, in addition to the existing Adriatic oil pipeline. The connection to the Druzhba oil pipeline also leads to the possibility that the market in Serbia will continue to be able to purchase only Russian crude oil.”
Impact of EU sanctions on Serbia’s energy security
Serbia currently receives its oil supplies via the JANAF oil pipeline from Croatia. However, Mr Kojcic emphasised that after the adoption of the eighth package of EU sanctions which bans the import of crude oil from Russia by sea, no problems are expected in the supply of crude oil and that the stability of the market will not be threatened.
“We have known about the decision to ban the import of Russian oil for several months,” underlined MrKojcic. “It was announced in May and it is part of the sixth package of EU sanctions. Also, NIS has an agreement with JANAF that until the beginning of December there will be a passage for Russian crude oil. Apart from that, NIS has been purchasing other types of crude oil until now, such as Kirkuk. At one point, Russian oil was cheaper, so the percentage of that oil in the overall sourcing was higher. Now the place of Russian crude oil will be taken by crude oil from some other country. As before, there are no problems in the supply of crude oil to the domestic refinery, which is most important and the security of supply is not threatened.”
Since Minister Kojcic’s interview, the spokesperson of the Hungarian government, Zoltan Kovacs, confirmed on Twitter that Hungary and Serbia have agreed to build a pipeline to supply Serbia with Russian oil via the Druzhba pipeline. In a subsequent tweet, Mr Kovacs stated “the country’s [Serbia’s] oil supply is largely via a pipeline through Croatia, but this is unlikely to be possible in the future because of the sanctions that have been adopted.”
