Srbijagas

Srbijagas
Type	Government-owned corporation
Industry	Natural gas
Predecessor(s)	NIS-Gas
Founded	October 1, 2005
Headquarters	Novi Sad, Serbia
Key people	Dušan Bajatović (CEO)
Services	distribution of natural gas
Revenue	100.3 billion RSD (2004), $1.6 billion
Net income	2.4 billion RSD (2004)
Employees	1,043 (2008)
Website	www.srbijagas.com

Srbijagas (full legal name: J.P. Srbijagas) is the state-owned natural gas provider in Serbia. The current General Director of the company is Dušan Bajatović.

History

Srbijagas was established on 1 October 2005 as a result of restructuring the integrated petroleum company NIS. The company was created on the basis of NIS divisions NIS-Gas, NIS-Energogas and parts of NIS-Jugopetrol.

Gazprom's takeover of Serbia's energy market

The Eurasian Daily Monitor reported in November 2008 how Gazprom's YugoRosGaz has influenced Serbian gas officials who were apparently "signing contracts with themselves" in order to help secure a Gazprom takeover of Serbia's energy sector:^[1]

Russian Gazprom’s opaque European network of subsidiaries and silent partners, which have been mired in numerous scandals over the past decade, is once again involved in what appears to be a major scam. ... It seems that Sasa Ilic, the chairman of the Serbian owned state gas company Srbijagas, signed an agreement in Moscow in mid-October with Gazprom’s CEO Alexei Miller for Russian gas deliveries to Serbia of 2.39 billion cubic meters of gas. Ilic, however, did not have the authority to sign such a contract, which was, moreover, not signed directly with Gazprom but with a little-known intermediary company, YugoRosGaz. Ilic is a principle stockholder in YugoRosGas. Thus, Ilic, in effect, signed a contract with himself. As it turned out, YugoRosGas received a $44.6 million (€35 million) payment from Gazprom for its services. Ilic presumably received a good share of this commission.