Gas Plant Near Nis: EPS and SOCAR Agree on Deal
EPS, Srbijagas and SOCAR agreed in Istanbul on the shareholder contract for the joint company building a gas plant near Nis, with signing expected in Belgrade within a month.
The Ministry of Mining and Energy has announced that representatives of the ministry, the Electric Power Industry of Serbia (EPS), Srbijagas and Azerbaijan’s SOCAR wrapped up talks in Istanbul on finalizing the Shareholders’ Agreement. The document establishes a joint company that will develop and build a new gas plant in Serbia, and a signing date has now been set.
“The contract between the three companies is expected to be signed in Belgrade within the next month,” the ministry said in a statement.
The plant is being built near Nis and is designed to run in combined mode, generating both electricity and heat, with the heat output feeding the city’s district heating system. Sources diverge on the plant’s exact capacity. The ministry, Nova ekonomija and B92 all cite the statement’s figure of up to 500 megawatts, while Minister of Mining and Energy Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic had previously given a split figure: about 500 megawatts of electricity and about 150 megawatts of heat. Timelines differ too. The ministry’s statement points to four years from the signing of the contract, while the minister’s earlier remarks and a report by the outlet NSreporter name 2030 as the project’s target completion year.
The ministry described the project as a milestone in cooperation between the two Serbian energy companies and their Azerbaijani partner.
“This is the first joint project of EPS, Srbijagas and SOCAR, and it represents an important step in further strengthening cooperation between Serbia and Azerbaijan in the energy sector,” the Ministry of Mining and Energy said in its statement.
From the intergovernmental deal to Istanbul
This is the first time we are reporting on the story, but the agreement has a clear back story. Serbia and Azerbaijan signed an intergovernmental agreement on building the plant in February 2026, in the presence of President Aleksandar Vucic and President Ilham Aliyev. In April it was confirmed that EPS, Srbijagas and SOCAR would be the project’s carriers, and the Istanbul talks marked the first round in which the three companies sat down to align the commercial terms of their joint company.
The project’s financial value and the ownership stakes in the future company have not been disclosed. According to the statement, those questions are to be settled by the Shareholders’ Agreement itself, whose text has now been finalized and awaits signature. Minister Djedovic Handanovic had also earlier announced a call with Mikail Dzabarov, chairman of the board of the Azerbaijani gas company, to resolve the last open issues before signing.
Why Nis, and why SOCAR
The choice of Nis is no coincidence. The city sits on the Serbia-Bulgaria interconnector, with a capacity of 1.8 billion cubic meters a year, through which Azerbaijani gas already reaches Serbia. SOCAR’s deliveries to Serbia reached about two million cubic meters a day last year, making the Azerbaijani company an established supplier rather than a new name in the country’s energy balance.
For EPS and Srbijagas, this is the first joint project to build generating capacity with the same foreign partner, which in practice means SOCAR will move beyond its role as gas supplier to become a co-owner of the plant that burns that gas. The next concrete date in this deal is the signing itself in Belgrade, expected within a month.
