Serbia Wants to Join AGRI Gas Project to Tap Caspian Supplies

Serbia wants to join the Azerbaijan- Georgia-Romania-Interconnection liquefied natural gas project as it seeks to diversify its supplies, President Boris Tadic said.

Already included in the Russia-backed South Stream gas pipeline, Serbia is interested to “take part in as many gas pipeline projects as possible,” Tadic said after meeting with Romania’s President Traian Basescu in Belgrade today. Serbia currently imports gas only from Russia via Ukraine and Hungary.

Basescu said Romania will support Serbia’s participation in the project that aims to bring Caspian gas to the Georgian Black Sea coast where it can be condensed before being shipped to Romania. Hungary has already joined the three core countries in the project to secure the LNG supplies to central Europe.

Tadic and Basescu also said their countries will continue work on the 1,400-kilometer (869 miles) Pan-European Oil Pipeline that will stretch from Romania’s Black Sea coast to Serbia, Croatia and Trieste in Italy. Its projected annual capacity is 90 million metric tons of oil.

To contact the reporter on this story: Misha Savic in Belgrade at msavic2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James M. Gomez at jagomez@bloomberg.net