The Serbian Government has announced it would take part into a new natural gas transportation project after its national gas company signed an agreement with Gazprom in this regard. The 800 million USD pipeline will be connected to the Bluestream network due to transport Russian gas to Western Europe via Turkey and under the Black Sea, as an alternative to the Nabucco project.

The Nabucco project, in which Romania is involved, is still in a preliminary talks phase. It aims at building a 3,300 km-long pipeline from Central Asia to Western Europe. The project is run by OMV Austria, MOL Hungary, Botas Turkey, BulgarGaz Bulgaria and Transgaz Romania.

The deal between Serbian national company Srbijagas and Gazprom-Gazexport will turn Serbia into “one of the major players on the regional gas transportation network”, a Belgrade government press release says.