“All of Hungary’s gas storage facilities are full, which not only assures domestic supply over the winter, but means that the Hungarian state will also be able to profit from renting out storage capacity”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó declared in a statement to Hungarian news agency from Moscow on Wednesday.

“A historically important state of affairs has developed in Hungary’s natural gas supply; never before have all of Hungary’s natural gas storage facilities been full. This is the situation now; 6.3 billion cubic metres of natural gas has been successfully stored”, the Minister told the press following talks with Deputy CEO of Gazprom Elena Burmistrova, who also supervises the company’s exports.

“Hungary’s natural gas supply has never been so secure or guaranteed. In addition, the Hungarian state will also be able to profit from this in view of the fact that it is storing 950 million cubic metres of natural gas in Hungary for Gazprom, which the company will be shipping to the south and west”, Mr. Szijjártó added.

“An agreement has been reached on the commencement of negotiations with relation to the natural gas supply for 2020-2021. We are currently in a position to be able to plan ahead for a period of roughly eighteen months”, the Minister announced.

Mr. Szijjártó said the Bulgarian authorities have signed the construction permit that will enable the transport of natural gas to Hungary from Russia, via Bulgaria and Serbia. “If we receive the relative gas quality guarantees from Bulgaria during the upcoming weeks, we will be launching the capacity purchasing procedure that will related to the Serbian-Hungarian border transition from 2021. This will enable the importing of 10 billion cubic metres of natural gas each year to Hungary from the direction of Serbia”, he added.

“It is good news that we were able to authorise the technical plan for the Paks nuclear power plant expansion project. This is an important milestone during the course of preparations. The number of permits received now exceeds three hundred, including several important ones such as the environmental protection permit”, the Minister said with relation to his negotiations with CEO of Rosatom Alexey Likhachev.

“We already have the building permits for the first three building site facilities, and the first, the office building of the chief contractor, is already under construction”, he added. “The drawing up of the 300-thousand-page establishment permit is moving forward according to schedule, and should be ready to put before the relative licencing authority next summer”, the politician stated.

“Nuclear energy is important to Hungary from the perspective of the country’s competitiveness and environmental protection undertakings”, Mr. Szijjártó declared. The Minister is in the Russian capital to attend the Russian Energy Week forum, and on Tuesday he took part in a roundtable discussion on atomic energy.

(MTI)