Serbia has delayed the launch of its section of Turkish Stream until May 2021 due to the slower than expected construction of a compressor, Russian news outlet Kommersant reported on November 25.
Serbia completed the rest of the pipeline some time ago and is eager to become part of the Turkish Stream pipeline.
According to Kommersant, this would mean that Russia’s energy giant Gazprom will need to book additional transit capacity through Ukraine for early 2021.
Turkish Stream spans a 930-km route across the Black Sea. It helps to meet Turkey’s ambition of becoming a gas hub serving European markets. However, analysts have noted that Turkey will not be able to use its role as a transit state for Russian gas to Europe as leverage over Moscow because if it attempted to play politics in that way the Kremlin could simply switch gas volumes back to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Serbia’s government has decided to withdraw a state guarantee for a €70mn loan to the natural gas provider Srbijagas, which has been approved by the parliament’s finance committee, N1 reported.
The loan had to be used by Srbijagas to build a pipeline from the Serbian border with Bulgaria to the border with Hungary and other neighbouring countries.
Srbijagas is borrowing the sum from Vojvodjanska Bank, OTP Bank and the Post Office Savings Bank.
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