Banatski Dvor Finally to Expand – Capacity of Only Underground Gas Storage Facility in Serbia to Be Increased to 711 m3

The expansion of the underground gas storage Banatski Dvor is one step closer to being realized after a decade and a half of various announcements and agreements, as eKapija learns, the storage facility will be expanded from the current 427 m3 to 711 m3.

This is said in the decision on the scope and the contents of the environmental impact assessment study of the project of the expansion of the existing underground gas storage Banatski Dvor, which the Provincial Secretariat for Urban Planning and Environmental Protection adopted at the request of the company Podzemno skladiste gasa Banatski dvor doo Novi Sad.

Let us remind that the agreements and memorandums about the expansion of the underground gas storage facility Banatski Dvor were signed on three occasions – first, in 2015, the president of the Managing Board of Gazprom, Alexey Miller, personally signed the agreement with Serbia and Srbijagas in Moscow. According to that agreement, the storage facility was supposed to be expanded to a billion cubic meters. Two years later, the Memorandum of Understanding was signed at the International Economic Forum in Saint Petersburg, and it was signed by the directors of Gazprom Export and Srbijagas, Elena Burmistrova and Dusan Bajatovic.

That document envisaged the preparation of a technical and financial feasibility study for the expansion of the capacities of the only Serbian underground gas storage facility, whose majority owner is the Russian Gazprom.

As said at the time, regardless of the study results, the capacity of the underground gas storage facility could be increased from 450 to 750 million cubic meters.

The most recent agreement on the same matter was signed in 2019 between the heads of Gazprom and Srbijagas. That same year, it was announced that the construction of a storage facility in Itebej, with a capacity of around a billion cubic meters, as well as another one near Pancevo, was also planned.

In March this year, Bajatovic stated that there was also the plan for Banatski Dvor to be expanded to the neighboring field of Cestereg.

– Cestereg and the expanded Banatski Dvor could store 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas. The plan for the construction of Srpski Itebej, which is 30 kilometers away from Banatski Dvor, remains as well – said the director of Srbijagas for the Politika daily.

How much Serbia needs additional gas storage capacities is shown by the fact that, at the peak of the energy crisis, the storage of 500 million m2 of gas was agreed with Hungary last year in that country for Serbia’s needs, and there was also talk about the expansion of that cooperation.

B. P.

Gazprom energoholding Serbia d.o.o.

JP Srbijagas Novi Sad

Podzemno skladište gasa Banatski Dvor

Pokrajinski sekretarijat za urbanizam i zaštitu životne sredine Novi Sad

Gazprom

Srbijagas

Podzemno skladište gasa Banatski dvor doo Novi Sad

Provincial Secretariat for Urban Planning and Environmental Protection

Dušan Bajatović

Alexey Miller

Banatski dvor

Čestereg

Itebej

underground gas storage facility

expansion of Banatski dvor

environmental impact assessment study