The general director of Srbijagas, Dušan Bajatović, says that the company plans to build a gas plant.
“Now we are thinking about maybe together with EPS or some other partners we start building a gas plant. We need to finish the expansion of Banatski dvor, probably we will not expand it only to Banatski dvor but to the neighboring Cestereg deposit, so it will not be 750 million cubic meters of gas already 1.5 billion,” said Bajatović for Tanjug, talking about Srbijagas’ new projects.
He added that there Is a possibility to start relatively quickly with the construction of another underground warehouse in Itebej.
“Perhaps we dare to move really quickly with the Itebej underground warehouse and wait for NIS to finish exploitation there, since they have concessions related to that,” said Bajatović.
As for the gas pipelines themselves, he said that the Niš-Dimitrovgrad-Sofia gas interconnection should be completed, where Srbijagas is also an investor. He added that the construction of that gas pipeline will be finished in October this year.
“And the gasification, interconnection, with North Macedonia should also be done, and I expect that it will be done by the end of next year. That is the direction Leskovac-Vladičin Han-Vranje-Macedonian border. There we had to change the pipe profile and that we are increasing the pressure from what was originally projected, but all of that was successful,” said Bajatović.
He stated that the gas pipelines In Kraljevo and Trstenik are also being completed. The Aleksandrovac-Tutin and Belgrade-Valjevo gas pipelines will be completed this year, Bajatović said.
“Something small is still left to be completed in Belgrade, and the entire Vojvodina is completed. Also the entire Braničevski district will be completed this year, and we expect to start the gasification of Pirot, to finish the gasification of Leskovac, then the gasification of Vranje, Vladičin Han and Valjevo. Gasification could start in Ub this year. It may be somewhere else depending on the financial possibilities of Srbijagas,” said Bajatović. He notes that the construction period is usually three years.
“We need all this, first of all, because of the factories that have been contracted in those cities. So we expect that a lot of it will be done this year. In the next year, that is, in two years, we expect that Paraćin – Zaječar – Luka Prahovo will be completed , it is a huge gas pipeline due to the industrial park that is expected in the port of Prahovo. These are really big plans, but also to gasify the east of Serbia. We expect that to be completed by the end of 2025,” Bajatović pointed out.
He adds that works from Zlatibor to Sjenica, including Priboj and Prijepolje, will begin in the second half of this year, which should be completed in two years. As he said, at this moment he cannot say whether some local distribution will be started, because everything will depend on how much money Srbijagas has available.
“Credit lines with state guarantees have been provided for the mentioned gas pipelines, so we have no problem with financing there – the money is provided, and Srbijagas has to manage itself for distribution,” explained Bajatović.
When asked how much gas Serbia consumes annually and that gas will be consumed more and more globally, given that it is an ecological fuel, Bajatović said that according to Srbijagas estimates, at least 2.86 billion cubic meters of gas will be consumed in our country this year.
“Since three or four years ago, when we used some two billion and maybe even less, we have now increased the consumption from that period by 20 percent. We also expect these connections that we mentioned to grow to 320,000 or 330,000, and in the next two or three years on some 400,000 or 420,000 individual gas connections.
Therefore, considering the number of factories whose construction is announced and put into operation, and all of them are looking for gas, we expect that perhaps already next year the consumption will certainly exceed three billion cubic meters of gas “, Bajatović told Tanjug.
The official plan, he adds, is for Serbia to spend 4.7 billion in 2030, most of which is in industry. When asked how environmentally friendly gas is, Bajatović said that it certainly is.
“Due to geostrategic reasons, people seem to be running away from gas, but in fact no one is running away from gas, many people buy Russian gas by smuggling it, other papers are just being made… The European Commission adopted it, and it is also considered at the world level , that gas and atomic energy are transitional energy sources for the transition to green energy. Therefore, gas is an ecological fuel,” said Bajatović.
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