Srpska Prime Minister Radovan Višković has announced his intention to sign a contract on long-term gas supplies from Russia by the end of the year.
“We expect to sign a contract on long-term gas supplies from Russia by the end of this year. We received the confirmation during a meeting with Mr Novak, which was also attended by the Gazprom management. Now we are at the stage of negotiations and believe that we will have no problems on this issue,” Radovan Višković said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper.
Višković explained that the issue of long-term supplies is complicated by the lack of a pipeline. Therefore, the republic is waiting for the pipeline to be built from Serbia in order to receive gas through it.
According to the Prime Minister, Sarajevo still does not agree to the pipeline from Serbia to Bosnia and Herzegovina “because of pressure from the American embassy”. He specified that Republika Srpska, in turn, would approve the construction of a gas pipeline running from Croatia to the city of Mostar if “Sarajevo authorises the construction of our gas pipeline from Serbia”.
“Our position was voiced at the meeting with Novak, and we believe it can help to reach an agreement with Sarajevo. But if that doesn’t happen, we have a backup option that we will implement with Gazprom. We are talking about gasification of Republika Srpska and the construction of two gas-fired power plants with a capacity of 100 megawatts each,” Viskovic said.
The Republic expects a meeting with Russian partners in the near future to agree on the modernisation of the existing pipeline, the Prime Minister added.
Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak discussed with Vishkovich the conclusion of a long-term contract on Russian gas supplies to the republic. Novak told reporters that the construction of a gas pipeline to the republic was discussed at the meeting; there is no decision on the timing yet, but the parties are interested.