June 4 (SeeNews) - Hungary has started the open season procedure for the import of up to 10 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year via its future link with Serbia, Hungary's foreign minister Peter Szijjarto has said.
"The binding phase of the public bidding procedure will launch in September and we are happy to understand that open season procedures in Serbia and Bulgaria have both proved successful," Szijjarto said in a video file posted on the website of Serbian news agency Tanjug on Monday.
By the time Serbia and Bulgaria complete the construction of the string of the TurkStream pipeline for transit of natural gas to Europe from Turkey on their territories, Hungary will be ready to receive up to 10 billion cubic metres annually, Szijjarto said at an energy conference in Belgrade.
In February, Bulgarian state-owned gas transmission company Bulgartransgaz said binding nominations submitted by users total 100% of the capacity of the future pipeline on the Bulgarian-Turkish border and 100% of the capacity announced on the Bulgarian-Serbian border.
In Serbia, the procedure for the booking of capacity for the transit of natural gas via the planned pipeline was launched in April but no official data on its outcome is available yet. The total volume of available annual capacity is 395.2 GWh/day at the entry point with Bulgaria,124.2 GWh/day at exit points in Serbia and 271.02 GWh/day at the interconnection with Hungary.
The TurkStream offshore gas pipeline, stretching 930 km across the Black Sea from Russia to Turkey, will consist of two parallel strings with annual throughput capacity of 15.75 billion cubic metres of gas each. One string is intended for consumers in Turkey, while the second is planned to carry gas to customers in Europe.