After Vladimir Putin recognized the breakaway Ukrainian regions as independent states yesterday and sent the Russian army to them, oil prices rose immediately.
The President of Serbia said that last night and added that he was afraid of what would happen to the price of gas, which we pump into storage as much as we can.
“According to the government’s decision, gas will not become more expensive for households or industry,” said Dusan Bajatovic, director of Srbijagas.
Speaking for TV Prva, he reminded that Presidents Aleksandar Vučić and Vladimir Putin agreed on 60 percent of gas at a price of 270 dollars per thousand cubic meters, and added that the rest was bought from Russia at the stock exchange price, and from traders at a higher commission price.
The agreement on this price is valid until the beginning of June, and Bajatović announced that negotiations with the Russians on a new gas contract will begin in mid-March, ie early April. He added that he hopes it will be concluded for at least 10 years. He estimated that the price in that contract could be at least 30 percent lower than the current market price of gas, which is a little over 800 dollars per thousand cubic meters – or about 600 dollars.
“Siniša Mali found some money, we will see if there will be a rebalance later in the year, Srbijagas also found some funds, so we are not wasting money, but we can’t waste it,” says Bajatović.
But it is not only the money that is in question, but also the amount of gas that you can buy, warned the director of Srbijagas.
“Half of Europe will freeze, the roles in that story are not naive at all,” Bajatović pointed out.
“Now we have 115 million cubic meters of gas in storage, we managed to recover a little, we also have 165 million cubic meters of Russian gas,” he said, talking about the reserves that Serbia can count on. “Banatski Dvor is the best warehouse in the world in the system of Russian Gazprom. It currently has 270 million cubic meters, and if we added a little, we would be safe until the end of the heating season,” he pointed out.
Asked whether it could happen that Serbia is asked to give up the import of Russian gas, Bajatović answered against the question: “And which gas would we buy then?”
He explains that sanctions against the import of Russian gas to Europe will not happen, because there is no other, for example American gas, that could replace it, B92 writes.
