Page 9 - FSUOGMWeek92020

FSUOGM PIPELINES & TRANSPORT FSUOGM
Serbia wraps up TurkStream construction
SERBIA
Bulgaria has still not declared the completion of its section.
SERBIA has completed its 403-km section of the TurkStream expansion, Serbian Energy Minister Aleksandar Antic said on February 28, and will continue work on necessary support infrastruc- ture in 2020.
Russia’s 31.5bn cubic metre per year Turk- Stream pipeline began pumping gas under the Black Sea to Turkey in January. Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary have agreed to extend the pipeline through their territory so more of its supplies can be dispersed in Southeast Europe.
Antic was speaking at the meeting of the advisory council of a rival project, the South- ern Gas Corridor (SGC), which aims to start delivering gas from Azerbaijan to Southeast Europe this autumn. Both SGC and Turk- Stream will help diversify Serbia’s gas sup- plies, he said.
“I am convinced that these projects, which we are rapidly implementing with partners, clearly show our strategic commitment to diversifying our gas supplies, and we want security and stabil- ity in supply, not only for Serbia but for the entire region,”hesaidaccordingtoanonlinestatement by the ministry.
Serbia broke ground on its section of the extension in May. With the pipeline itself now complete, the focus will move to construction of support infrastructure such as compressor sta- tions, Antic said.
Neighbouring Bulgaria has meanwhile lagged behind. The government in Sofia had set a goal
of completing the 474-km Bulgarian stretch of the pipeline by the end of last year. Work stalled, in part because of delays in selecting a construc- tion contractor. A consortium led by Saudi Ara- bia’s Arkad eventually secured a contract worth €1.1bn in September, following a legal dispute.
Russian President Vladimir Putin even accused Bulgaria of deliberately delaying the project in December, threatening to reroute the pipeline around the country. But this month Sofia secured a 40% gas price cut from Russia, its Prime Minister Borisov told reporters on March 3.
Serbia currently gets its Russian gas from Hungary via Ukraine, but will be able to receive supplies via TurkStream starting in December 2020, according to Russia’s Gazprom. The system is anticipated to reach its full 31.5 bcm per year capacity by October 2022, Gazprom said in an investor presentation last month.
Bulgaria and Serbia are also building a sep- arate pipeline connecting their gas grids. The Interconnector Bulgaria-Serbia (IBS) is expected on stream by the beginning of 2020 “at the lat- est”, Antic said. It will be able to flow 1.0-1.8 bcm per year of gas in the direction of Serbia and 0.15 bcm per year in reverse.
Rather than handling TurkStream’s gas, IGB will enable Serbia to access Azeri supplies flow- ing through SGC via another gas link between Bulgaria and Greece. Serbia will also be able to source gas from LNG terminals in Greece.™
Ukraine, Slovakia launch virtual reverse gas flow
UKRAINE
The system allows Ukraine to substract
its gas purchases from Serbia from Russian transit volumes heading to Europe.
UKRAINE launched virtual reverse gas flows with Slovakia this week, enabling it to cut the cost of its gas imports.
Despite being a major transit route for Rus- sian gas heading to Europe, Ukraine has not bought any supplies from Russia’s Gazprom in over four years, because of political tensions. Instead, it receives some gas back from neigh- bouring Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.
Ukraine has been demanding for years that Gazprom allow it to use virtual reverse, whereby it simply subtracts its purchases from the EU from the Russian transit volumes before they leave its territory. This not only cuts transport costs but allows it access to greater volumes.
Gazprom finally granted Ukraine the right late last year to use reverse flow, otherwise known as backhauling, after signing a new EU-compli- ant gas transit contract with the country.
Slovakian transmission system operator (TSO) Eustream began offering Ukraine 10mn cubic metres (mcm) per day of reverse flow
on March 1 at the Velke Kapusany-Uzhgorod interconnection point, the company said in a statement.
“We have been looking forward to this event for almost five years,” Serhiy Makohon, the head of Ukraine’s new TSO, GTSOU, said in a statement.
The offering may increase in the future if there is market interest. Slovakia is capable of sending up to 43 mcm per day of gas to Ukraine.
“The backhaul capacity depends on the availability of the direct flow and therefore it is interruptible and may be interrupted in the event that no gas flows in the direction from Ukraine to Slovakia are available,” the operators said.
GTSOU signed an interconnection agree- ment with Eustream on December 30 last year paving with the way for backhauling. The com- pany began receiving virtual reverse flow from Poland in January and plans to use the system with Hungary starting this spring, according to Makohon. ™
Week 09 04•March•2020 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P9