Expert: Azerbaijani gas to become additional supply source for Serbia

The energy needs of European countries, including Serbia, are growing every day, and Azerbaijani gas will become an additional source to meet the needs of this country, Serbian political scientist, a research associate at the Institute for European Studies Stevan Gajic told Report.

“The Serbian economy and industry needs more energy, the demand is constantly growing, so Azerbaijani gas is more than welcome,” he said.

He noted that the construction of the Serbia-Bulgaria interconnector, access to energy carriers from new sources, including the Caspian gas delivered to Europe via the Southern Gas Corridor, will deepen the partnership between Azerbaijan and Serbia.

“We don’t know what will happen in Eastern Europe after the war, what ideas NATO may have regarding pipelines, so it is good to have more than one source of natural gas, in this respect Serbia considers Azerbaijan as a reliable partner,” he said, adding that this partnership has fairly good prospects for expansion.

As for the interconnector between Serbia and Bulgaria, this project was mainly carried out by the EU, the expert said, adding that Serbia already has a gas supply resource. The Turkish Stream gas pipeline, which is essentially a rebranding of South Stream, delivers gas to Bulgaria, from where it can get to Serbia through a connecting pipe.

“Of course, Serbia should have alternative resources. It’s good that this interconnector with Bulgaria is being created in the country, and there are other pipelines: the oil pipeline that passes through Hungary and is part of the old Druzhba oil pipeline passing through Ukraine, the recently launched Turkish Stream,” concluded Stevan Gajic.