BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 13. Croatia has allocated about 459 million euros to its building pipeline infrastructure towards Hungary and Slovenia, Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development of the Republic of Croatia Damir Habijan said in an exclusive interview with Trend, as he attended Azerbaijan-Croatia business forum in Baku.
“In 2021, we opened an LNG terminal on the Island of Krk. At this point, we are extending its capacity from 2.9 to 6.1 billion cubic meters of natural gas. We have also allocated about 459 million euros to building pipeline infrastructure, one towards to Hungary and one towards to Slovenia. When coming to the Ionian Adriatic Pipeline (IAP), it's a shorter way to Hungary and Slovakia and also to Slovenia for Azerbaijani gas,” he said.
Habijan pointed out that Croatia is supporting also the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP).
“We expect to finish building the gas pipeline towards Slovenia and Hungary by 2026. We also want to build a southern interconnection to Bosnia and Herzegovina. We have allocated a huge amount of funds to expand the capacity of our LNG terminal and to build our pipeline infrastructure,” the minister added.
Ionian Adriatic Pipeline can be connected to the Trans Adriatic Pipeline to transport gas to many countries in South-East Europe. The pipeline with total length of 516 kilometers will stretch from Albania through Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, to split in Croatia.
The capacity of the pipeline will amount to five billion cubic meters of gas per year.
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