The Bosnian Serb entity’s president Milorad Dodik on Saturday again rejected a possibility of connecting Bosnia and Herzegovina’s gas network to Croatia’s network, insisting that the Serb entity be provided from the pipelines that deliver gas supplies only from Russia.
According to his interview given to the Serbia edition of the Russian Sputnik news agency on Saturday, Dodik said he had talked with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov this past Thursday in Moscow about cooperation including the status of the oil refinery in Bosanski Brod, a northern Bosnian town in the Serb entity lying on the right bank of the Sava river, and a possibility for the refinery to be fuelled on natural gas in an attempt to reduce air pollution that also affects Croatia’s Slavonski Brod, a town on the opposite bank.
“Lavrov told me that he had discussed the matter with Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovixc,” Dodik said, insisting that behind an agreement reached in principle by President Grabar-Kitarovic and Minister Lavrov were actually “Croatia’s speculations”.
Dodik claims that a future one pipeline to be installed for the needs of the refinery is a way for Croatia to reach Bosnia and Herzegovina’s gas market.
“This may be logical for the Croats and not for us,” Dodik said.
He is in favour of building a completely new pipeline, several hundred kilometres long, towards Serbia in order to enable the Bosnian Serb entity to get gas supplies from the South Stream route planned by the Russian Federation.The South Stream project is at a standstill in Europe as the European Union has found that Moscow is violating EU rules by how it is going to make use of that future gas pipeline.
The other entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Croat-Bosniak Federation, is inclined to connecting to Croatia’s pipeline at the route from Slavonski Brod-Bosanski Brod-Zenica.
Source: EBL News