BELGRADE (Serbia), November 26 (SeeNews) – Serbia plans to complete the unbundling of Srbijagas by October 2020, creating conditions for free competition on the natural gas market, the managing director of the state-owned company, Dusan Bajatovic, has said.
The company has already transferred the gas transmission business into subsidiary Transportgas Srbija, which started operations in October 2019, Bajatovic said in a statement on Monday.
"Srbijagas will also unbundle the distribution activity; in 2015 the company Distribucijagas Srbija was formed. We believe that there should be four distribution zones in Serbia, which will cover all consumer needs. After the distribution, the gas dealership activities will also be unbundled," Bajatovic said during a presentation of a system for remote control and management of gas transportation systems (SCADA) launched under a project in which the European Union has invested a median grant of 1.7 million euro.
The entire unbundling process will be executed in line with the commitments of Srbijagas to the European Commission and the Energy Community, Bajatovic said.
The restructuring and unbundling of Srbijagas is a precondition for the opening of Chapter 15 - Energy in Serbia's EU accession talks and this precondition should be fulfilled by October 2020, the delegation of the European Union to Serbia said in a separate statement on Monday.
The Serbian government and the Energy Community agreed on an action plan for the unbundling of Srbijagas in February 2015 which saw the natural gas monopoly establishing subsidiaries for the operation of the country's gas transmission and distribution systems later that year. However, in 2019, the Energy Community said Srbijagas continues to be engaged in both supply and transmission as the two subsidiaries are far from being independent system operators.
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