Serbian Minister of Mining and Energy Zorana Mihajlovic said the political crisis in Ukraine would affect the energy and financial stability of entire Europe but that Serbia had secured sufficient quantities of natural gas both for businesses and households.
In an interview for Al Jazeera, Mihajlovic said that, according to all analyses and projections, prices of gas and other fuels, as well as energy prices in general, would not settle or return to the pre-2021 level.
"That will mean new financial crises and problems, as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have also warned," Mihajlovic said.
She said Serbia's priority was a diversification of gas suppliers, an expansion of existing gas storage facilities and construction of new ones, as well as a regional crisis plan and establishment of strategic gas reserves.
"As far as Serbia is concerned, we have made important decisions and we have two gas supply routes. In the past, we only had one gas supply route, via Ukraine and Hungary, and we were very vulnerable, and we would have been in serious trouble now had only the one remained," Mihajlovic said.
She said that, last year, Serbia had secured a new gas supply route via Bulgaria but that, in order to ensure security of supplies in the decades to come, the gas storage facility at Banatski Dvor must be expanded and a new underground storage facility built at Itebej by 2025.
"Serbia has sufficient (gas) quantities at this time, we have a crisis plan, we know what to do and I do not expect us to suffer in terms of supplies, but we will suffer financially because we have no influence on market prices. Serbia's idea is to try to establish joint strategic gas reserves together with Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, which we recently also discussed with the Bulgarian PM in Belgrade," Mihajlovic said.
According to a statement released by her ministry, Mihajlovic said the completion of a gas interconnector with Bulgaria would diversify Serbia's gas suppliers, boosting energy stability and providing an opportunity to buy gas at lower prices. ■
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