Serbia secures gas import deal with Russia, Serbia's Vucic says

BELGRADE, March 30 (Reuters) - Serbia has secured a further three months of gas imports from Russia following talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, the Balkan nation's President Aleksandar Vucic said on Monday.

Cheaper imports of Russian gas cover up to 90% of Serbia's needs, though Belgrade has sought to diversify supply with gas from Azerbaijan and liquefied natural gas from terminals in Greece.

Vucic said he spoke by telephone with Putin on Monday, and the two discussed bilateral ties, economic cooperation, global developments and gas imports.

"What was extremely important for me, and I thanked President Putin, is that we got another three-month extension of the gas contract on very favourable terms," Vucic told reporters in Belgrade.

He added that the extension maintained current price and volume conditions.

"We ... pay between $320 and $330 (per 1,000 cubic meters). So the extension is, under the same conditions, 6 million cubic meters of gas per day ... and if more gas is needed, it will allow us that kind of flexibility," he said.

Vucic said prices will be indexed to crude oil benchmarks.

Vucic said last month that Serbia, a candidate for EU membership, wants to diversify its energy supply away from Russia and was aiming to secure about 20% of its needs under the EU's communal gas-buying initiative, which it joined last year.

But the Iran war has left Europe with very little spare capacity in recent weeks. On March 20, Serbia cut excise duties on crude oil to calm the local market and ‌offset the war's impact.

Serbia's Srbijagas utility imports gas from Russia's Gazprom GAZP.MM. They jointly own a gas depot with total capacity of 450 mcm located in the northern Serbian town of Banatski Dvor.

Serbia also pays for additional gas storage in neighboring Hungary.

Gazprom Neft SIBN.MM and Gazprom also own a majority stake in Serbia's U.S.-sanctioned NIS NIIS.BEL oil company though they must divest from it by May 22.

Hungary's MOL MOLB.BU and the UAE's ADNOC signed an agreement on January 19 with the ​Russian companies to ​buy ⁠their NIS stakes, pending approval by U.S. Treasury's ​Office of Foreign Assets Control.