In the latest report, the Energy Community claims that due to the Russian monopoly, end customers in Serbia pay a higher price for gas than countries where there is competition.
The claims of the Energy Community, from the report from two years ago, that the end buyers of gas in Serbia pay more for this energy source than the others because they have only one supplier, Russian Gazprom, are not true, it is said for Politika.
According to the report of the Energy Community, the prices for the end customer in Serbia remained the same, while in the countries whose markets have more suppliers and competition, they are significantly lower.
The difference clearly shows the price of a monopoly for the current gas user and the refusal to respect the legal framework of the Energy Community Treaty, the report said. Dependence on long-term contracts with only one supplier (Serbia) and limited access of gas traders to transmission networks further affect the problem of reducing the price of a cubic meter of gas in Serbia.
Under these conditions, consumers cannot take advantage of competition, the Energy Community claims.
The head of Srbijagas explains that Serbia has a significantly lower price. The price of gas at the Bulgarian-Serbian border is currently 155 dollars per thousand cubic meters, which is lower than the price of gas we get at the Hungarian border through Ukraine, which costs 160 dollars per thousand cubic meters, with additional transit surcharges, he says.
Purchase for Serbian consumers in the first two quarters of 2021 will be 60 to 90 dollars cheaper for a thousand cubic meters of gas, than in the case of buying on a stock exchange, says Bajatovic and states that the price on the most liquid European gas exchange, the Netherlands, is now 240 dollars.
– It is true that we have a long-term contract with Gazprom, but gas prices for our country are on average lower than the annual prices on the stock exchanges, which is also known and verifiable – Bajatovic is explicit.
Vojislav Vuletic, president of the Gas Association of Serbia, says that the job of the Energy Community is not to interfere in the relations between Gazprom and Serbia and to determine gas prices for our country, but to deal with interconnections in Europe and the Western Balkans.
– It is true that Serbia has always had cheaper gas compared to the rest of Europe precisely because of long-term contracts with Gazprom. It is clear that this is just another attempt by the anti-Russian lobby in our country to remove Gazprom from the Serbian market, which is impossible. Not because Serbia is emotionally attached to this gas giant, but because of the fact that for the next 15 to 20 years, Europe and this part of the Balkans can only be regularly supplied with gas by Russia, that is, Gazprom – says Vuletic.
When asked which gas will arrive through the Nis-Dimitrovgrad gas pipeline, for the construction of which part of the money was provided by the European Union, he answered – also Russian gas.
– The liquid natural gas that America is talking about is not enough, and even if it were, it is too expensive for Serbian conditions. In addition, there are no technical possibilities to reach Serbia. Azerbaijani gas is also available in limited quantities purchased in advance. In a situation when, after half a century, Serbia managed to get a parallel gas pipeline “Turkish Stream” neither for us, nor for those to whom we will deliver the energy of the future along this route, we must not be frivolous and allow supply problems. And that will not happen only thanks to Russian gas, whether the Energy Community liked it or not – Vuletic concludes, Politika reports.
