Serbian Energy Infrastructure – best investment in future

Budapest/Belgrade, Feb. 26, 2010 ( Source: serbiangov.rs) – Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic said on Wednesday on the Summit on Energy Security in Budapest, that investments in energy infrastructure are investments in the future development of countries in the European region that they have to catch up with advanced economies and to provide citizens a higher level of stability.Summit on Energy Security brought together the premiere of countries of Central, Eastern and Southeast Europe. We must invest joint efforts to carry out the planned new transit projects as soon as possible, to ensure a stable energy supply of Europe, as well as to diversify sources and routes of energy markets, said the Prime Minister. He stressed that for Serbia, a priority is the project pipeline South Stream, which should provide significant amounts of natural gas to markets in Europe. He added that the pipeline has a European character and importance and will have positive effects on energy security, creating an energy efficient network economic activity and regional networking. At the same time, we are open for participation in other projects and plans aimed at strengthening the security of energy supply, the expansion of transport-storage capacity and regional networking, said Cvetkovic.

Serbia is already making serious efforts to improve legislation, adopting European standards and the development of energy capacity that would be of regional and European importance, he noted. The Prime Minister said that investment in the reconstruction of the energy capacity per annum is approximately €1 billion, and expressed the expectation that this amount will increase further in the next five years. He recalled that Serbia has started with significant investment in new electricity production capacities, which include construction of two power plants on lignite and a gas plant, whose total capacity is 1750 MWh, which represents approximately 20% of the total production capacity of our country. Cvetkovic said Serbia is investing maximum efforts to promote electricity production from renewable sources, and started activities in the utilization of the remaining hydro potential, especially the Drina River, whose capacity is estimated at approximately 1,000 MWh, with an average annual production of 3800 GWh. The Prime Minister stressed that Serbia adopted a program of support for the production from renewable sources, which should attract significant investment, particularly in the production based on wind, water or biomass. According to him, all the mentioned projects will be carried out only through a majority share of private capital, thus indirectly abolishing a monopoly in the field of electricity production and further improve the efficiency of energy systems. He said that Serbia in early 2009 signed a contract with Russian Gazpromneft, which began an extensive process of investing in the reconstruction of Serbian capacity for processing oil. The Prime Minister stressed that in parallel with the activities of the South Stream project, Serbia invested significant resources in the development of its strategic gas storage. The first of these projects, Banatski Dvor, whose capacity is 800 million cubic meters in the final stage, Cvetkovic explained and added that we intend to increase the capacity several times with the construction of new warehouses. We also plan to invest together with Romania, which will give an additional contribution to the energy stability of Serbia and the region, said the Prime Minister.