February 19 (SeeNews) - Russia's Gazprom said on Monday its board of directors has approved the subscription of a 15.46 million euro ($19.2 million) capital hike of Swiss-based South Stream Serbia, the company established to build the Serbian section of a pipeline that would carry Russian gas to Europe.
Gazprom will subscribe the issue of 51 new shares of South Stream Serbia with a nominal value of 1,000 Swiss francs each and a placement price of 303,136 euro per share, the company said in a filing with the Moscow Stock Exchange.
The Russian company currently owns a 51% stake in the capital of South Stream Serbia, while Serbian gas monopoly Srbijagas controls a 49% shareholding interest, according to data from the website of Gazprom.
Earlier this month, Gazprom said the vote on a proposal to increase the company's stake in South Stream Serbia is on the agenda of a meeting of Gazprom board of directors planned for February 13.
Last month, Serbian prime minister Ana Brnabic said that the country expects to start soon the construction of the Serbian Stream pipeline, which will replace Gazprom's South Stream project and bring Russian natural gas through Bulgaria. The company will be renamed from South Stream Serbia to Serbian Stream, Brnabic said at the time.
In December, Russia's government said it adopted an amendment to its agreement with Serbia's government to allow the Southeast European country to re-export Russian natural gas to third countries.
The Bulgarian government proposed in December 2014 to the European Commission to build an EU-funded regional gas hub near the country's Black Sea port of Varna to dispatch gas deliveries to the rest of Europe - to Greece, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia and, via those countries, to EU member states in central and western Europe, as well as to non-EU Serbia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Gas can be fed into the hub from Russia, from Bulgaria's potential gas deposits in the Black Sea or, via interconnectors with Greece and Turkey, from the Caspian region or the Eastern Mediterranean, or from the Greek and Turkish LNG terminals, the Bulgarian government said at the time. The gas hub could also be supplied via an interconnector with Romania, which is estimated to have significant deposits in the Black Sea shelf.
The South Stream was conceived as a project to carry Russian gas under the Black Sea to Bulgaria and through Serbia, Hungary and Slovenia further west to Austria. In December 2014, the European Parliament adopted a resolution opposing the South Stream project and recommending a search for alternative sources of gas supplies for the European Union.
As a result, Russia proposed a pipeline project named Turkish Stream, which would carry gas under the Black Sea to the Turkish coast. Gazprom also designed follow-on projects to bring Russian gas from Turkish Stream into Europe include the Tesla Pipeline, to run from Greece to Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary, ending at the Baumgarten gas hub in Austria, and Eastring, planned to carry gas north via Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia.
($ = 0.80564 euro)
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