The President of Republika Sprska, Milorad Dodik announced that in the next ten days, an agreement will be sign for a direct delivery of gas from Russia to the Serbian entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“I am convinced that the project will be realized. I have guarantees for that, which were confirmed to me by a very important man from Russia. The South Stream issue will be put on the agenda again, in the moment when conditions allow” Dodik said, refusing to reveal the identity of the “very important man from Russia”.
The signing of the agreement on Russian gas delivery to Repubilka Srpska has been confirmed also by the director of the Gas-Res, Slobodan Puhalac, who announced that in the following ten days the agreement, between Moscow and Banja Luka will be signed, which was endorsed in September last year, when the construction of the South Stream was still on the move.
Such announcements by Dodik and Puhalac have prompted speculations that Russia has not completely given up on the South Stream project.
This was backed by the Minister of Industry, Energy and Mining of Republika Sprska, Petar Gjokic, who announced that Banja Luka “had not lost hope that South Stream will be put on the agenda again”.
The Vienna-based Kurier Newspaper said that the South Stream project was only “seemingly dead”, noting that Russia will re-launch it.
According to the newspaper, Russia will redirect one section of the Turkish Stream toward Greece and then toward Europe.
The media in Republika Srpska say that Russian President Vladimir Putin, during his recent visit to Budapest, announced that the Turkish stream would continue in Europe, bypassing Bulgaria.
“That route would go through Greece and Macedonia to Serbia and then to the north, toward Hungary,” the Republika Srpska Ambassador to Moscow, Dusko Perkovic said.
According to Perkovic, the construction of this section of the pipeline will be subject of discussion between Moscow and Brussels.
In one section, the Turkish Stream follows the route of the South Stream, in the part on the bottom of the Black Sea, but instead of ending in the Bulgarian town of Varna, it will end up in Turkey and from there, continues toward Greece, Bosnian media write.
According to the same sources, Turkish Stream has four pipes, and only one will serve to deliver gas to Turkey, and the other three will deliver gas to Europe.
The director of the Russian National Energy Institute, Sergey Pravosudov, has expressed reserve in terms of this issue, saying that such an idea exists but that the financing of the project remains a major problem.
“Europe does not want to invest together with Gazprom, and would like to control the pipeline,” Pravosudov said.
