November 2 (SeeNews) - Hungary's national gas transmission network operator FGSZ hopes to launch the construction of a gas interconnection with Slovenia in 2023, Hungarian media reported.
"The next step will be a market test, which is expected by 2022. If the capacity reservation is successful, i.e. above a certain ratio, the investment can start the following year," the Vilaggazdasag daily quoted company CEO Szabolcs Ferencz as saying on Monday.
Hungary and Slovenia plan to apply for EU funding to cover half of the investment in the interconnector, which will have an annual capacity of about 1.5 billion cubic metres of gas, the CEO said.
"Hungary would have liked to see higher capacity, but there were certain technical limitations on the Slovenian side," he added.
Last month, Russia's Gazprom said it started supplying Russian gas to Hungary and Croatia via TurkStream pipeline, effectively bypassing Ukraine as a transit country.
Supplies via this route were made possible thanks to a new gas trunkline built in Hungary by FGSZ, as well as the completion of expansion of the national gas transmission systems in Bulgaria and Serbia where operators Bulgartransgaz and Gastrans Novi Sad had brought compressor stations onstream.