The authorities in Slovenia - the central European country once part of Yugoslavia - are predicting a major upsurge in gas consumption there after 2010, according to one local media report.
The See News service reports that the Slovene government expects gas consumption to double in the years after 2010 as part of a major ‘dash to gas’ in the power generation sector there.
The rise in gas consumption is expected because of the replacement of the existing electricity production from coal and also because of additional production of electricity from gas, which is very low in Slovenia in comparison with the EU average, Slovenian government public relations officer Valentin Hajdinjak told See News.
Slovenia’s prime minister recently met Gazprom’s Alexei Miller to discuss opportunities for Russian gas supply to the country to be increased. There is also the possibility that Slovenia could construct a new transport route to bolster gas supplies to Italy, a market increasingly targeted by Gazprom.