Eurasia Press & News
Serbia clinched a deal with Hungary on Thursday to buy gas from the reserves of its northern neighbour, averting at the eleventh hour a heating crisis sparked by the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute.
Local media quoted the cabinet of Serbian President Boris Tadic as saying said Tadic struck the deal with Hungarian Premier Ferenc Gyurcsany. The gas was due to begin arriving to Serbia in the afternoon.
Tadic said Hungary would send in between one million and two million cubic metres of gas per day to Serbia over the coming period. But this amount was not nearly enough as Serbia needs an additional three million cubic meters daily to meet its needs.
“We have launched a new diplomatic offensive in search of new gas sources,” Tadic told journalists in Belgrade.
He added that Serbia would try to secure more gas through pipelines coming from Belarus, but said there are a lot of “consumers and hungry mouths along the road to Serbia” so the probability of reaching such an agreement is far from certain.
Due to the milder than expected weather, Hungarian consumption was lower than forecast, allowing the country to will sell its extra to Serbia on a day-to-day basis. Budapest had also introduced restrictions for industrial consumers at the start of the crisis.
Serbia’s gas supply was cut off on Tuesday causing problems around the country but more seriously in the province of Vojvodina. Three thermal power plants in Novi Sad, the province’s largest city, shut down last night because they were not able to switch from gas to crude heating oil, leaving some 80,000 people without heat in subzero temperatures.
Most Vojvodina residents have already been forced to switch to electricity for heating, with authorities appealing for measured consumption to avoid an overload of the grid and possible power cuts.
