Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić has announced that he has secured a new three-year natural gas supply deal with Russia with extremely favourable conditions following a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Serbian President said they have agreed on the main elements that are very favourable for Serbia. He didn’t go into further details regarding the price Serbia will have to pay for the Russian deliveries, it will be negotiated by Serbia’s natural gas provider Srbijagas and Gazprom.
The current ten-year gas supply agreement between Serbia and Russia expires at the end of the month. This will be replaced with the new three-year contract, likely to be signed during a visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to Belgrade early in June.
AleksandarVučić also said that he had also agreed with the Russian president on the expansion of gas storage facilities in Serbia as Gazprom is the majority owner of the Banatski Dvor natural gas storage facility.
“If we can proceed with everything as agreed, we will be secured for the winter,” underlined PresidentVučić.
Last November in Sochi, the two presidents agreed to peg Serbia’s gas price for six months while increasing the volume of gas deliveries. At that time, Putin said he expected that they could reach a deal before the existing one expires.
Serbia imports almost all of its gas from Russia’s energy giant Gazprom, with domestic production covering only about 15 per cent of its needs.
Russia’s deal with Serbia follows after Moscow cut off gas exports to EU members Poland, Bulgaria and most recently Finland. In the meantime, the European Union increased efforts to phase-out Russian fossil fuels before 2030, starting with gas, in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
