A meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Dusan Bajatovic, Director General of Srbijagas took place today as part of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum – 2012.

The parties discussed the bilateral cooperation within the South Stream project pointing out the agreement signing by the joint project company and the Srbijagas – Giprospetsgaz consortium stipulating the engineering documents elaboration, spatial planning and the environmental impact assessment of the gas pipeline.

In addition, Alexey Miller and Dusan Bajatovic addressed the prospects for granting the project of national significance status to South Stream in Serbia.

Based on the meeting results, the participants appreciated the ongoing joint actions within the South Stream project and confirmed their intent to create the necessary conditions for adopting the final investment decision in November 2012.

Background

In 2011 Gazprom supplied Serbia with 1.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

Srbijagas is a state-owned company dealing with natural gas transmission, distribution and storage in Serbia.

With a view to diversify the natural gas export routes Gazprom is implementing the project for construction of a gas pipeline running under the Black Sea to the countries of Southern and Central Europe – the South Stream project. Intergovernmental agreements were signed with Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia, Croatia and Austria in order to implement the onshore gas pipeline section.

In January 2008 Russia and Serbia signed the Umbrella Intergovernmental Agreement for the South Stream project and the Banatski Dvor UGS project.

In November 2009 the South Stream Serbia AG joint project company was registered. Gazprom holds a 51 per cent stake in the company and Srbijagas – a 49 per cent stake.

In October 2009 Gazprom and Srbijagas signed the Agreement on setting up a joint venture for the Banatski Dvor UGS facility. The joint venture has the following shareholding structure: Gazprom – 51 per cent, Srbijagas – 49 per cent.

The Banatski Dvor UGS facility was put onstream on November 21, 2011.