Gazprom Installs Turbines In Serbia

The power generation arm of Russia’s state-owned gas supplier Gazprom has installed two new gas turbines at the 200-MW Pancevo combined-cycle gas-turbine (CCGT) plant in northern Serbia.

The GTU-65 turbines developed by Italy’s Ansaldo were shipped from the Italian port of Genoa to the Romanian port of Constanta, and then transported to the site via the Danube river, Gazprom Energoholding said in an August 2 statement. Ansaldo’s turbines were chosen because of their “high efficiency and reliability”, Gazprom Energoholding's director in Serbia, Alexander Varnavsky, explained.

The next key equipment to be delivered will be two waste heat boilers, a steam turbine and a generator, the company said.

The Pancevo station is due online in 2020 and will supply power to the nearby Pancevo oil refinery operated by Gazprom’s majority-controlled Serbian arm NIS. Gazprom Energoholding hired Ansaldo to supply the plant’s turbines, generators and auxiliary systems in March 2018, under a contract worth €40mn ($44.6mn). China’s Shanghai Electric Group is serving as the project’s engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor, under a deal with NIS.

The overall cost of the project is estimated at €180mn, with Gazprom’s financial unit Gazprombank covering the bulk of this sum with a loan.

The Pancevo facility is Gazprom Energoholding’s first overseas CCGT project. But Gazprom has plans to develop as many as four such stations in Serbia in order to create gas demand in the coal-reliant country for its TurkStream project.