Serbia - Gas Sector Development Program

Overview & Synopsis

Serbia - Strategic Gas Infrastructure and Institutional Strengthening Project for Serbia, with the development objective to improve the security and reliability of gas supply in Serbia. Components: Component 1 – Trupale–Pojate Gas Transmission Pipeline, which finances engineering, procurement, and construction of a 62-kilometer, 900-millimeter-diameter, high-pressure pipeline with metering, regulation, safety systems, fiber-optic communications, and integration into a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) network; the pipeline is designed to hydrogen-ready specifications to preserve future flexibility, will be transferred upon commissioning to Gas Infrastruktura as the Transmission Network Owner (TNO), and operated under lease and operation arrangements by Transportgas Srbija as the Transmission System Operator (TSO), thereby removing a central corridor bottleneck, enabling greater utilization of gas from the Bulgaria–Serbia interconnector and the planned North Macedonia interconnector, and improving supply to key demand centers and to the planned combined cycle gas turbine in Niš. Component 2 – Institutional Strengthening and Technical Assistance, which supports sector governance, reform implementation, and preparation for subsequent phases through three Sub-components: Sub-component 2.1 – Project Implementation Support and Institutional Strengthening, which establishes and operates a Project Implementation Unit within the Ministry of Mining and Energy (MoME), provides owner’s engineer and construction supervision, strengthens the Central Fiduciary Unit, and builds capacity in Gas Infrastruktura, Transportgas Srbija, Srbijagas, and the Energy Agency of the Republic of Serbia (AERS) on corporate governance, asset management, climate risk integration, emergency preparedness, and human resources including gender-responsive measures; Sub-component 2.2 – Sector Reforms and Financial Sustainability, which provides technical assistance to operationalize the 2025 Gas Law, develop secondary legislation, strengthen financial sustainability and corporate governance of gas sector institutions, advance market liberalization and non-discriminatory third-party access, align with the evolving European Union Gas and Hydrogen Package, and integrate climate risk into sector planning; Sub-component 2.3 – Gas Infrastructure Studies for Phases 1, 2 and 3, which prepares climate-informed feasibility, engineering, and environmental and social studies and instruments for the Trupale–Veliko Oraše corridor completion and for future strategic investments including a compressor station, the Mokrin–Belgrade pipeline, and the Tilva underground gas storage facility, and supports spatial planning and procurement documentation. Component 3 – Contingent Emergency Response, a zero-allocation mechanism that can be activated to reallocate uncommitted funds for eligible crisis or emergency response, subject to adoption of a CERC Manual and an Emergency Action Plan, to address climate- or disaster-related damages to gas infrastructure or supply disruptions.