Serbia and Russia have agreed in advance to conclude a new gas contract for a period of six months under the terms of the existing agreement. This was announced by Dusan Bayatovic, director of the state-owned company „Serbiagaz“.
According to him, negotiations with representatives of „Gazprom Export“ were held in St. Petersburg and led to an agreement in principle to extend gas supplies. „We previously agreed that the new gas contract would be signed for six months under the terms of the existing contract. This is very important now from the point of view of the flexibility of supplies, and in terms of costs and volume it meets the economic interests of the Republic of Serbia“, said Bayatovic.
The head of “Serbia Gaz“ also noted the assurances received from the Russian side regarding the reliability of future cooperation. “I would like to draw attention to the assurances we received from “Gazprom“ and personally from Alexei Miller: “We will not leave Serbia without gas“, he emphasized.
Bayatovic added that the signing of the new agreement is expected no later than March 20.
Russian-Serbian gas cooperation
In an interview with the newspaper “Večerne Novosti“ The Russian Ambassador to Belgrade, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, stated that thanks to Russian gas supplies, Serbia saves at least EUR 300 million per year, and in certain periods market prices were almost twice as high as the contractual ones. According to him, supplies have remained stable throughout the agreement and have not generated any complaints from consumers.
The diplomat also noted that after the expiration of the current extension of the contract at the end of March, there is no reason to worry about supplies, as Moscow and Belgrade maintain their mutual understanding on energy cooperation.
Earlier, the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of “Serbiagaz“ Alexander Vulin stated in an interview with TASS that Russia does not impose political conditions on Serbia regarding energy supplies and does not use energy resources as a tool for pressure, emphasizing the economic feasibility of purchasing Russian gas.