The Hungarian part of a gas pipeline between Hungary and Romania has been completed at a cost of about HUF 9 billion, gas distributor FGSZ Foldgazszallito, which owns and operates the pipeline with Romanian peer Transgaz, told MTI on Wednesday.
The pipeline, with a capacity of 500,000 cubic metres per hour, runs from the Hungarian city of Szeged to Arad, in Romania.
The 47-kilometre stretch of the pipeline in Hungary is set for test operation, but the section crossing the border has not been built yet for lack of the necessary inter-governmental agreement. The pipeline is therefore expected to be completed only by the end of September, rather than in the summer as originally planned.
FGSZ, a unit of oil and gas company MOL, signed an agreement with Transgaz to connect their gas networks in the summer of 2008, with each company financing the cost of construction in their own country.
Transgaz has built 37 kilometres of the 62-kilometre stretch of the pipeline in Romania.
The project was awarded 30 million euros in EU support, but work was so far advanced when the grant tender was announced that the entire amount could not be called down. FGSZ expects to receive 8.33 million euros and Transgaz 8.28 million in EU support for the project.
The pipeline will bring gas from Hungary to Romania at first, but the direction can be reversed.
The pipeline is part of NETS (New Europe Transmission System), an initiative by MOL to connect the gas networks of countries in the region.