Serbia's intensive diplomatic offensive yielded the first gas delivery on Thursday for the Balkan country, which was hard hit by gas shortage resulting from the Russian-Ukrainian dispute.
Serbia received one to two million cubic meters of gas from Hungary on Thursday afternoon while the German government agreed to deliver three million cubic meters of gas per day to Serbia.
Serbian President Boris Tadic said earlier on Thursday that he has agreed with Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany that Hungary should deliver between one and two million cubic meters of gas per day in the following days.
Tadic said that those amounts of gas did not satisfy all of Serbia's gas needs since the country needed an additional three million cubic meters a day in order to meet its most immediate needs.
He said that Serbia was launching a new diplomatic offensive in order to secure more gas.
Late on Thursday, Tadic said that the delivery of three million cubic meters of gas per day had been agreed on with the German government and that this would improve Serbia's energy capacity multifold.
"The gas supply of individual households and not just cities will be stable tomorrow," Tadic told the national television RTS.
He said that talks were held in parallel with the Russian government and that some quantities of gas might be sent through the main gas pipeline.
Tadic said that the crisis would not be overcome until Russia and Ukraine settled their differences, and called on Serbian citizens to save energy and behave responsibly.
"I expect the situation between Russia and Ukraine to be resolved within a week," Tadic said.
During the winter period, Serbia requires around 10 million cubic meters of gas a day.
After gas deliveries to Serbia were suspended, citizens in eight towns were left without central heating due to the inability of certain thermo power plants to use heating oil. Consumers in those towns could use electrical heating or other forms of fuel.
Dusan Bajatovic, director of Serbia's gas company, told the national television RTS that efforts were being made to ensure that Serbia can receive gas from other sources before the resolution of the Russian-Ukrainian dispute.
He said that technical parameters indicated that the Ukrainian gas pipeline was being filled and that the pressure is mounting and that the situation with the Hungarian system was similar.
"If part of the Russian gas starts arriving tomorrow afternoon, we could count on having a stable supply in the next 72 hours and a complete normalization of deliveries in the next few days," Bajatovic said.
Source:Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article