After US sanctions, Azerbaijan suspends gas supplies to Serbia

"Azerbaijan has suspended gas supplies to Serbia due to some problems it is facing," Serbian President Aleksandar Vu?i? announced on Saturday.

"We have been informed by Azerbaijan that, due to the problems they are having, from today we can no longer count on the 1.7 million cubic meters of gas that comes to our country every day," Vu?i? said.

He added that Serbia will now start spending its reserves until Azerbaijan resolves the problems.

"It was smart that we accumulated reserves. I hope that in a month or two they will fix this. If not, calculate that in the next four months we will have to increase and use the reserves. There will be no shortage of either gas or oil," Vu?i? said.

Azerbaijan's decision comes a day after the United States placed Serbian Oil Industry on a sanctions list, insisting that the Serbian company not remain under Russian ownership. Serbia signed a natural gas supply agreement with Azerbaijan in September 2024 as part of efforts to diversify its supply sources and reduce its dependence on Russian gas, on which it has relied heavily for more than a quarter of a century.

Serbia and Azerbaijan signed the strategic partnership agreement in November 2023.

Serbian Energy Minister Dubravka Handanovi? Gjedovi? said in September that during the winter, Serbia would be able to count on secure deliveries of around one million cubic meters of gas from Azerbaijan. The gas from Azerbaijan is delivered to Serbia through a new pipeline in Bulgaria, which is partly financed by the European Union (EU)./REL