Vuletic: Bulgarian Threats of Stopping Russian Gas Are Pressures Against Serbia, More Expensive Transit Through Hungary Only Alternative

After Bulgaria announced that it would not renew the gas agreement with Russia, which expires at the end of this year, many wondered whether and how it would affect the supply of Serbia with Russian gas through the Balkan Stream.

What’s more, the news came only several days after the announcement of the possibility of Bulgaria’s closing of this gas pipeline if Russia started paying for gas transit in rubles due to the sanctions, and there’s the same fear when it comes to Hungary, which has joined the EU’s sanctions toward Russia, though it has refused to take part in the US sanctions on the import of Russian oil and gas.

Last week, the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, said that Serbia had nowhere to receive gas from, except through Berehovo from the Hungarian direction or the Balkan Stream through Bulgaria.

– If they cancel that for us, I don’t know what we will do – Vucic said.

What to do is the question we asked Vojislav Vuletic, a gas expert who believes, like many other experts, that it is impossible for Bulgaria to give up on Russian gas, because it gets 94% of its gas through Russia.

– The Bulgarians cannot give up on Russian gas due to their own needs. It would be sawing off the branch they are sitting on. It makes no sense and is merely talk for the sake of it, but on the other hand, it is a kind of a pressure on Serbia, in the sense of “we’ll turn off gas for you”. However, we then say OK, turn it off, and we’ll get Russian gas from the north, through Hungary, just like we’ve done for the past 30 years – Vuletic says for eKapija.

According to him, the gas route through Ukraine is open even now, while the war is going on.

– Everything is flowing normally there and there’s no reason for it to stop. The gas pipeline belongs to Gazprom, Gazprom is selling gas to us, we have friendly relations with Hungary and there are no problems or reasons why we can’t receive gas through their territory – says Vuletic.

It’s another matter, however, how much it will all cost:

– When we receive gas through the Balkan Stream, we pay for it at our border. And when it goes through Ukraine, we pay for it at the Ukrainian border and then there’s the transit fee which needs to be paid to the Hungarians. According to the international transit calculation, at 100 kilometers, we would pay 3 US dollars more for 1,000 cubic meters.

Still, it’s not very likely that the Balkan Stream will stop, according to Vuletic.

– Furthermore, Serbia has sufficient gas reserves for the whole spring in its underground storage – he adds.

When asked whether there are any possibilities for some other alternative routes of gas supply, for example, at least a certain quantity of LNG from the Krk terminal, or through the gas interconnector with Bulgaria, the construction of which has started, or getting LNG from the terminal in Athens or gas from Azerbaijan, Vuletic says “we can toy with these ideas, but there are no reasonable options except for Russian gas”.

– The Croatians have the Krk terminal but there’s no gas there, and even if it were delivered, the quantities would be so small that they would all be spent by Croatia – Vuletic says and adds that the Nis-Dimitrovgrad gas pipeline is “unnecessary”.

When asked about the gas agreement of Russia and Serbia, Vuletic says that he expects a higher price of Russian gas from June.

B. P.

Gazprom

Vojislav Vuletic

Balkan Stream

Russian gas

gas pipeline through Ukraine

transit

transit fee

conflict in Ukraine

supply of Serbia with gas

LNG terminal on Krk

liquefied natural gas

LNG terminal in Athens

gas from Azerbaijan

Serbia Bulgaria gas interconnection

alternative gas supply routes

sanctions toward Russia