The CEO of “Serbiagaz“ Dusan Bayatovic said today that the Russian gas supply contract, which expires at the end of March, will likely be extended by another six months, the TANJUG agency reported, quoted by BTA.
Bayatovic said that the price of gas for households will not be changed, and that Serbia has sufficient quantities until the end of the heating season.
He said that the long-term gas supply contract that Serbia has with Russia is being extended through separate annexes, but that there are many problems with it, such as European sanctions and problems with payment transactions, which, according to him, are not so easy to solve.
Serbia satisfies over 80 percent of its energy needs by importing Russian gas, the "Blic" newspaper reports.
Since the beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, the country has been trying to establish new gas supply routes.
In 2024 Serbia has signed a two-year contract with Azerbaijan for up to 400 million cubic meters of gas per year.
In an interview with "Blits" at the end of last year, the chairman of the "Gas Association" Serbia's Vojislav Vuletic explained that it is possible to deliver an amount that is approximately 10-15 percent of Serbia's needs through Azerbaijan.
Vuletic claims that there is no alternative to Russian gas, because Serbia consumes about 2.5 billion cubic meters per year.
He explains that it is unrealistic to deliver liquefied gas through Alexandroupolis in Greece or Krk in Croatia due to technical and infrastructure challenges.
According to Vuletic, in practice liquefied gas is significantly more expensive, despite media claims that the price of liquefied and natural gas is the same.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in October last year that Russia had offered Serbia a gas supply contract until December 31, then said that this was disappointing news because Serbia, according to him, had expected to conclude a long-term contract as early as May 2025, when the ten-year gas contract with Russia expires.
"This is very disappointing news for us, because by May we were supposed to conclude a long-term contract for three years. We were more than an honest and reliable partner in every respect, not to mention the fact that Serbia gave up arbitration and many other things to preserve friendship and partnership relations,“ Vucic told the pro-government private TV station "Informer".
Serbia expects to conclude a new annex for gas supplies from Russia at a time when the finalization of the sale of the majority Russian stake in Serbia's only oil company, NIS, which amounts to 56.15%, has not yet been completed.