Serbian, Russian Firms Eye Gas Pipeline Construction in Bosnia – Media

Talks with Russian firms and the Srbijagas monopoly on joining the ownership structure of Slavija International, the concessionaire that will build the pipeline, have been intensified and will soon be completed, the Nezavisne Novine daily quoted Radomir Njezic, a co-owner of Slavija International, as saying on its website on Sunday.

Njezic added that long-term gas supplies for the Sava pipeline across Bosnia’s Serb Republic, some 1.0 billion cubic metres a year, will be agreed at a meeting of officials of Srbijagas and Russia’s Gazprom in Belgrade on Tuesday.

Slavija International was awarded the concession on the future pipeline in 2002 but the undertaking has been stalled as the Serb Republic insisted it is guaranteed a share of the supplies. The pipeline is to stretch on 460 kilometres from the Republic’s border with Serbia to Bosanski Novi, a town in the westernmost part of the Republic, at the border with Croatia.

The Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat Federation are the two autonomous parts that form post-war Bosnia.