Vucic: Russian Gas Stays 318 Euros After Putin Call

In brief

• The price of Russian gas for Serbia stays at 318 euros per 1,000 cubic meters
• The European market price on the TTF was 868 euros per 1,000 cubic meters the same day
• The annex to the gas arrangement expires on September 30, with an extension expected from Monday, September 28
• NIS’s separate license from the US agency OFAC also expires on September 30

The price of Russian gas for Serbia will stay at 318 euros per 1,000 cubic meters even after September 30, while the same quantity cost 868 euros, nearly three times as much, on the European TTF market on Saturday, September 26. The figures were announced by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic after a one hour phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Vucic addressed the public in a video posted to his Instagram account, @buducnostsrbijeav. He said the annex to the gas supply agreement expires in a matter of days, on September 30, and that he expects it to be extended starting Monday.

“I am certain that the annex will be extended starting Monday, and that we will still be able to have, I would say, a good, low price for gas,” Vucic said in the video address.

He then gave the exact gap between that price and the market rate.

“That is around 318 euros per 1,000 cubic meters of gas. Today on the TTF market it is 868 euros,” Vucic said, adding that this shows Serbia has a good price, good flexibility and good volumes.

What about the Petroleum Industry of Serbia?

The call also touched on the Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS), majority owned by Russia’s Gazprom Neft and under US sanctions since the start of the year. Vucic described that issue as far more complicated than the gas price.

“We also talked about the Petroleum Industry of Serbia, where the problem is more complicated, but we certainly exchanged views on that issue,” Vucic said, without giving details of what, if anything, was agreed.

NIS’s separate license from the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which has allowed the company to keep operating despite the sanctions, also expires on September 30, the same day as the gas annex. The company has already applied for a new license to cover the period after that date. Whether the Vucic-Putin call will affect that process was not addressed in the announcement.

According to a Kremlin statement, the two presidents also discussed the further development of Russian-Serbian relations, particularly in energy and the oil and gas sector. Belgrade and Moscow are separately trying to close a new, more permanent agreement on Russian gas supplies to Serbia. Vucic had already raised that agreement two days earlier in New York, in a conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, saying he hoped the deal would be finished by the end of September, the same deadline the current annex runs out.

Vucic said he has now been talking with Putin for 14 years, and described this call as long and substantive. Beyond energy and NIS, the two also discussed bilateral relations between Serbia and Russia and the involvement of Russian Railways.

The next step is the formal extension of the annex, expected on Monday, September 28. Until then, two questions remain open: whether NIS gets a new OFAC license, and how the talks on a new, longer term gas agreement between the two countries turn out.