Serbia received the 1st quantities of gas into its section of the extension of Gazprom's Turkish Stream pipeline

Belgrade, January 3 - Neftegaz.RU. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on the 1st day of the year opened a portion of a Russian gas project running through his country and hailed it as key for the security of its energy supply.

Vucic, said:

• This is of crucial importance for Serbia's further development of great importance for the industry, Serbia's economic progress, and all our people.
• Serbia would receive gas through the pipeline at a price of up to $155 / m³, with much lower transport costs than before. 
• Also, Serbia will charge a transit tax, which will help pay for the pipeline's construction.

The Balkan Stream is a branch of the 930-km-long TurkStream gas pipeline, a project of Russia's Gazprom and Turkey's Botas which can transport around 31.5 billion m³/ year of gas.

The commercial opening of the section of the pipeline that passes through Serbia from the Bulgarian to the Hungarian border was on January 1, 2021.
The independent gas transport operator for the pipeline is the company Gastrans, a joint enterprise of Russia's Gazprom and Serbia's public enterprise Srbijagas.

The Serbian section, from Zajecar to Horgos, is about 403 km long and delivers Russian gas through Turkey and Bulgaria.
Its capacity is 15.75 billion m³/ year of gas.