State will meet South Stream obligations - Vučić

State will meet South Stream obligations - Vučić

Commenting on PM Ivica Dačić's statement that "the construction of the pipeline was dragging out over obtaining state guarantees," Vučić said he was "a very serious man who dealt with serious issues."

"The state will meet all its obligations - whether someone somewhere is criticizing some minister is not something I am going to go into. Serbia is a much more serious state than some people who work for that state would want it to become," Vučić was quoted as saying.

Also on Wednesday, Srbijagas CEO Dušan Bajatović was taking part in the Kopaonik Business Forum when he said the government was negotiating a loan to build of the part of the South Stream gas pipeline across Serbia with Russia's Gazprom.

He said the public company - singled out earlier this week for criticism in connection to South Stream - "will repay the loan from dividends from the project."

The final consideration of the loan agreement, which envisages an annual interest rate of 4.25 percent, is under way, he said.

An agreement should also be reached as to how to tackle risks such as how to cover the costs of the loan that Srbijagas takes for re-capitalization, in the event of a delay in the building of the gas pipeline.

"We are trying to reduce all risks to a minimum," Bajatović said.

"Gas price unaffected"

The crisis in Ukraine is not affecting the gas price in Serbia, CEO Dusan Bajatović said on Wednesday, adding that gas reserves are enough for households during this heating season.

"I could not say this for the industry, and in that sense we will have to consider other options. Srbijagas has filled the Banatski Dvor storage, together with Gazprom, and these are paid gas reserves," Bajatović told reporters on the sidelines of the Kopaonik Business Forum, and underlined that the basic gas supply was "not at risk."

Bajatović said that there would be problems, if there were long-term disruptions in the supply from Ukraine, and that potential emergency gas supplies could be "drawn" from the leading gas hub in Europe.

"Now, there are some gas surpluses because of increased deliveries via Yamal (gas pipeline), and that is the gas running across Belarus and Poland to Germany, and in that sense Nord Stream is practically working at additional capacity and this gas could end in Baumgarten which is the leading gas hub, from which we could then obtain emergency gas supplies," Bajatović explained.