Serbian Govt Seeking Ratification of Accords With Russia, Eu
BELGRADE. July 9 (Interfax) – Serbia’s new government said it unanimously approved on Wednesday draft laws to ratify a Serbian- Russian agreement on cooperation in the oil and natural gas industry and two agreements with the European Union.
One of the accords with the EU is the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA), signed in Luxembourg on April 29, 2006.
The other is a trade transit agreement.
The bills will receive priority consideration in the Serbian parliament, the government said in a press release.
The government also set up a working group to seek the sale to Gazprom Neft of controlling interest in national oil company Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS) AD.
Economics and Regional Development Minister Mladjan Dinkic, who is also deputy prime minister, was put at the head of the working group.
The Russian-Serbian oil and gas agreement was signed in Moscow on January 25, but early parliamentary elections in Serbia have delayed with its planned ratification. A protocol on key terms for the purchase by Gazprom Neft of a 51% stake in NIS was also signed in Moscow on January 25.
These accords lay the formal basis for Serbia to join South Stream, a planned pipeline to carry natural gas from Russia to the Balkans and other European countries across the Black Sea and via Bulgaria and Serbia.
There is a plan to build an underground gas depot in an exhausted gas field in Banatski Dvor, 60 kilometers from the Serbian city of Novi Sad. The depot would accumulate a minimum of 300 million cubic meters of gas.
South Stream, to be about 900 kilometers long and carry up to billion cubic meters of gas a year, would link the vicinity of Dzhubga in Russia’s Krasnodar territory to the Bulgarian city of Varna. It would lie on the Black Sea floor.
Later the pipeline it would be extended to southern Italy and the center of Europe.
Italian company Eni is the partner of Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom (RTS: GAZP) under the project to lay South Stream’s offshore part.
Construction of South Stream may start this or next year. Gas transmission through it may begin in 2013. The entire project is valued at more than $10 billion.
NIS is Serbia’s oil and gas monopoly. It controls 72% of the country’s oil and gas market.
The company owns two oil refineries that have a total annual capacity of 6.3 million tonnes but today process 4.1 million tonnes a year, which fully satisfies Serbia’s needs for oil products. Their sales total $1.8 billion a year.
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