BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 9
By Leman Zeynalova - Trend:
The Niš-Dimitrovgrad gas pipeline (Serbia-Bulgaria interconnector) project will be among the last natural gas infrastructure projects financed by the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Bank told Trend.
EIB will finance the Serbian section of the Niš-Dimitrovgrad gas pipeline, which will enable Serbia to get access to Azerbaijani gas via the Southern Gas Corridor.
The Niš-Dimitrovgrad gas pipeline, for which construction should start this year so that the pipeline can become operational by 2023, will enable Serbia to be supplied with natural gas from other suppliers – from LNG terminals in Greece, from the TAP and TANAP gas pipelines that are part of the Southern Gas Corridor, and possibly from the Eastern Mediterranean gas pipeline, with gas from the Leviathan field (Cyprus and Israel).
EIB will finance the construction of the Serbian section of a 171 km natural gas interconnector between Serbia and Bulgaria. The €25 million loan from the EIB, the bank of the European Union, will enable the diversification of Serbia’s energy supply and strengthen energy networks in South East Europe. It will also support faster integration of the region into the EU energy market, improve competition and ultimately attract more investment. The EIB loan complements a €49.5 million EU grant (from the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance – IPA II) for this project, which is on the fourth list of Projects of Common Interest.
“This project will be among the last natural gas infrastructure projects financed by the EIB in line with changes stipulated in its Energy Lending Policy and the Climate Bank Roadmap. They reflect a strong bank’s position towards decarbonisation of the energy sector and European economies, focusing on the ambitious challenge of the sustainable long-term energy investments. The Bank is phasing out support to the production of oil and natural gas as well as traditional gas infrastructure like networks. In order to manage this change, it decided to stop approving any such projects from the end of 2021. A few projects that can be approved until end-2021 include those already under appraisal at the time of the policy review and gas infrastructure projects included under the 4th list of Projects of Common Interest co-financed with EU budget. Since this interconnector project in Serbia fulfils those criteria, it remained eligible under the new policy,” said the EIB.
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