Serbian President Vucic helped Russia avoid gas blackmail from Ukraine
Serbia, which planned to commission its section of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline no earlier than March–April, at Russia’s request, completed all the necessary work in December, so that Moscow would not have to turn to Kyiv for the sale of additional transit capacity.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic personally took control of the work at an accelerated pace.
As a PolitNavigator correspondent reports, according to the project, the Turkish Channel gas pipeline consists of two “strings” (large-diameter pipes) capable of carrying 15,75 billion cubic meters of gas per year each. The first line is aimed at the Turkish domestic market, the second - at the markets of south-eastern and central Europe.
“According to the original plan, the entire volume of gas from the second line is transported in transit through Turkey to the border with Bulgaria, where it enters the modernized Bulgarian gas transmission system, which, after modernization and expansion, will be capable of transmitting approximately 12 billion cubic meters of gas per year to the border with Serbia,” the political scientist commented on the situation. Oleg Bondarenko. – A new gas interconnector pipeline is being built on the territory of Serbia, which is an extension of the national Serbian gas transportation system, which receives gas on the border with Bulgaria and then sends part of it for consumption in the domestic market of Serbia (and the Republic of Srpska Bosnia and Herzegovina), and the rest in transit to the border Serbia and Hungary.
The initial plan provided for the synchronization of completion dates for work related to the construction of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline and the expansion of national gas transportation systems in Bulgaria and Serbia. This was scheduled for the very end of 2019. At the end of December 2019, the Turkish Stream was built and put into operation.
Work was underway in Serbia, but was at an early stage, while in Bulgaria, despite the signing of an EPC contract with the Saudi Arabian company Arkad, practically no work was carried out.”
According to Bondarenko, Gazprom assumed the possibility of a delay in the construction of gas pipelines in Bulgaria and Serbia, but the company, as a reliable supplier, booked gas transportation capacity for 2020 for gas supplies to Serbia through the Ukrainian corridor, which is unprofitable for Russia neither economically nor politically .
In 2020, the construction of the gas pipeline in Serbia continued, and in the spring of the first quarter of 2020, work was intensified in Bulgaria. However, in the fall it turned out that due to a combination of various circumstances, putting the gas pipeline into operation in Serbia is possible no earlier than March-April 2021.
This meant that in order to organize Russian gas supplies to Serbia in 2021, Gazprom would need to again turn to the Ukrainian side with a request to sell additional transit capacity, which carries significant image, political and economic risks.
“Resolving this crisis situation required intervention at the highest level. In November 2020, a Russian-Serbian working group was created, working under the direct control of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. Through the efforts of the working group, the pace of construction of the gas pipeline in Serbia, as well as obtaining the necessary permits, was increased manifold. Working seven days a week and twenty-four hours a day brought results, and on January 1, 2021, as planned, the first commercial supply of Russian gas to Serbia took place along a new route - through the Turkish Stream gas pipeline and the national gas transmission systems of Bulgaria and Serbia,” – Bondarenko explained.
President Vučić at the launch ceremony of a new gas pipeline
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