Russian gas prices will be favorable for Serbia, Vučić says

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. File photoBELGRADE, May 29. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that during a telephone conversation with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, they reached an agreement that the price of gas for Serbia from the Russian Federation would be much lower than the average for market, approximately three times. Vučić said last Thursday that he was counting on a telephone conversation with the Russian president on Sunday. He clarified that they expect to receive an honest price for gas and large volumes of its supplies from Russia and discuss this with Putin.Putin discussed gas supplies and the situation around Kosovo with Vučić by phone «Negotiations remain on an additional 800 million cubic meters of gas (per year). This increase is due to the development of Serbia. So the question of price remains for part of the volumes. And about 2.2 billion cubic meters an agreement was reached with President Putin that this would be the most favorable price in Europe, with the possible exception of Belarus and Armenia, which are in the CIS and a union state with the Russian Federation,» Vucic told reporters at a briefing. «So if on the TTF exchange the price of gas is about 960 dollars per thousand cubic meters in summer, and in winter, I'm afraid that gas will rise to 3.5 thousand, and maybe up to 4 thousand per thousand cubic meters, then at the current price we will receive about 340-350 dollars per thousand cubic meters» — said the Serbian leader and added that the details are yet to be discussed with Gazprom. He stressed that only the oil formula will be used to calculate the price of gas and the contract «will be concluded for three Vučić called the conversation with the President of Russia very good, «on a wide range of topics», and noted that it was possible to agree on the main elements of a future gas supply agreement.Serbia has started negotiations with Russia on a new gas supply contract»It is crucial for us to ensure sufficient energy resources, and in accordance with this we will start, and this will take a year and a half, to build diesel and crude oil storage facilities in our country. Also Let's start, and I partially talked about this today with President Putin, further construction of gas storage facilities in Serbia, and at this time we will have storage volumes of up to 500 million cubic meters in Hungary,» the Serbian President said. Vučić said last Saturday that now in The Serbian part of the Banatski Dvor underground gas storage contains 162 million cubic meters of gas, while the Russian part contains 123 million cubic meters. At the same time, only 5 million cubic meters of gas can be pumped out of the storage facility daily, which is two to three times less than the daily needs of Serbia during the cold months. The Serbian authorities, together with the Russian side, will increase the capacity of the Banatski Dvor underground gas storage (UGS) from 5 to 6.7 million cubic meters of blue fuel per day. The current contract between Srbiyagaz and Gazprom for the supply of 6 million cubic meters of gas per day from Russia to Serbia at $270 per thousand cubic meters expires on May 31. The Serbian authorities reported that they plan to sign the next contract with the Russian side for 10 years.