BELGRADE, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Serbia aims to start the construction of its section of the TurkStream pipeline for transit of Russian natural gas to Europe in March or April, the head of state-owned gas monopoly Srbijagas said on Thursday.
Dusan Bajatovic said Gastrans, the company in charge of the project, had secured the first part of the financing, 300 million euros ($340 million), from its shareholders.
Gastrans is owned by Swiss-based South Stream Serbia, in which Russia’s Gazprom holds a 51 percent stake and Srbijagas the remainder.
Gazprom plans to build a branch of TurkStream for transit of gas to Europe from Turkey via Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary. The project is part of the Kremlin’s plans to bypass Ukraine, currently the main transit route for Russian gas to Europe, and strengthen its position in the European market.
The planned 400-km stretch through Serbia will link the Serbian natural gas transmission system with those of Bulgaria and Hungary. Bajatovic said the project on Serbian territory should be completed by Dec. 15.
The projected technical capacity of the new pipeline is 13.88 billion cubic metres a year.
The Energy Community, an international body established by the European Union and aspiring members, including Serbia, urged the Balkan country’s energy regulator to ensure the project does not lead to market foreclosure in Serbia and beyond.
It said Gastrans should offer a third of the gas it received through the pipeline on independent markets and that Srbijagas had to ensure that its transmission system operator subsidiary, Transportgas Srbija, was unbundled. ($1 = 0.8814 euros) (Reporting by Maja Zuvela; Editing by Dale Hudson)
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