Serbia aims to complete the construction of its section of TurkStream pipeline for transit of Russian natural gas to Europe by December 15, 2019, the head of state-owned monopoly Srbijagas, Dusan Bajatovic, said on Monday.
Srbijagas is in talks with financial institutions for securing financing for the project, which is expected to start in the second half of March, Bajatovic said in a video file posted on the YouTube channel of Serbian public broadcaster RTS.
Serbia’s Gastrans, the company in charge of the project, has already secured 300 million euro ($341 million) of financing from its shareholders for the construction of the pipeline, Bajatovic said.
Gazprom plans to build a string of TurkStream for transit of gas to Europe from Turkey via Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary. The TurkStream, stretching 930 km across the Black Sea from Russia to Turkey, will consist of 2 parallel strings with annual throughput capacity of 15.75 billion m3 of gas each. One string is intended for consumers in Turkey, while the 2nd will carry gas to customers in Europe.