Montenegro gets EUR 700 million submarine cable to Italy

Laying of a EUR 700 million worth of submarine power cable between Montenegro and Italy should begin soon.

Namely, Crnogorski Elektroprenosni Sistem (the Montenegrin Power Supply System - CGES) has obtained a building permit for a substation in Lastva Grbaljska that would transfer electrical power via a 400kV long-distance power line to Pljevlja and a 500kV submarine power cable to Italy.

This permit is issued by the Ministry of Sustainable Development, and the laying of this cable should start very soon, the Podgorica daily Dan reports. The power cable will be laid along with an optical cable for data transfer.

Italy's Terna, with which this project will be implemented, is going to invest over EUR 700 million in the laying of the submarine cable, while CGES will contribute about EUR 100 million.

For the construction of substation in Lastva, laying of the high-voltage cable and the reconstruction of substation in Pljevlja, CGES has so far taken out two loans - EUR 25 million from the German Development Bank and EUR 60 million from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.