Serbia in talks with Bulgaria to join TurkStream extension project

Serbia is in talks with the Bulgarian government to join the construction of Gazprom's TurkStream gas pipeline in order to bring forward the completion time, said the head of state-owned monopoly Srbijagas, Dušan Bajatović.

Serbia is eager to see the rapid completion of the first part of the 308 km (191 mile) pipeline in Bulgaria, Bajatović said.

The entire 403 km (250 mile) long Serbian section of pipeline has not been completed, and the government there is expecting to import around 13 billion m³ of natural gas every year through Gazprom's TurkStream via Bulgaria.

Gazprom began pumping gas to Europe through TurkStream on January 1. Hungary is already booking import capacity, while Bulgaria and Serbia have already sold 100% of their respective capacities for a period of 20 years, he added.

Last month, Bajatovic said that the complete pipeline in Bulgaria and what Hungary still has to do should be ready by the end of 2020.

"If the Bulgarians step up work, then it will be completed within the deadlines," Bajatović said at the time.

In September 2019, Bulgaria's state-owned gas provider, Bulgartransgaz, awarded a €1.1-billion contract to Saudi-led group Arkad to construct a westward extension to TurkStream to its border with Serbia.

TurkStream's offshore section stretches 930 km across the Black Sea from Russia to Turkey and consists of two parallel strings with a total capacity of 15.75 billion m³. One string is to cover Turkish demand, the second will continue to Europe, via Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary.

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