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Serbia Ratified Oil & Gas Agreement with Russia
Serbian parliament ratified Tuesday the oil and gas agreement with Russia. Of 250 lawmakers, 214 voted for the bill on Serbian-Russia’s cooperation, and 22 rejected it.
Russia and Serbia inked the 30-year intergovernmental agreement for oil and gas cooperation January 25, 2008. Simultaneously with that document, the parties inked a protocol spelling out the basic terms for selling Serbia’s Naftna Industrija Srbije to Russia’s Gazprom Neft.
The agreement of Serbian government and Gazprom provides for the sale of the state-run stake in Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS) to Gazprom Neft without the tender held to the effect, rebuilding and upgrade of NIS, laying via Serbia a 400km branch of the South Stream pipeline currently constructed by Gazprom and Italian ENI. What’s more, Gazprom will complete construction of the underground gas storage facilities in Serbia.
Under the agreement, Gazprom Neft will pay ˆ400 million for 51 percent in NIS and inject at least ˆ500 million in its rebuilding and upgrade. The stake is to be sold by the end of 2008 and Gazprom Neft once announced it was planning to close the deal by the fall of 2008. On July 10, 2008, however, Serbian Minister of Economy and Regional Development Mladjan Dinkic said he would endeavor to obtain a new offer from Gazprom for the majority stake in NIS and press for revising the price of the deal.
NIS is a vertically-integrated company with the annual production of 1 million tons and refining of 7 million tons. It has a sales network of its own.
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