The flow natural gas from the Azerbaijan towards the Serbia has been suspended and it is not clear when it will resume, the Serbian president said Aleksandar Vucic to the Tanjug news agency according to Reuters.

“I received information from our brothers and friends from Azerbaijan that due to force majeure and the problems they have, as of today we cannot count on 1.7 million. cubic meters of natural gas coming in every day,” Vucic told reporters. Vucic added that it is unclear when natural gas flows will resume.

“This means that from today we will start spending the natural gas reserves,” Vucic stressed, adding that he hopes that in a month or two natural gas flows will resume.

In 2023, Serbia, which uses more than 3 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year, signed an agreement with Azerbaijan for the purchase of 400 million cubic meters of natural gas per year from 2024. The rest of the natural gas comes from Russia.

Serbia, which aims to join the European Union, is under pressure to reduce its dependence on Russia for natural gas and oil.

Following new US sanctions on Russia’s oil sector, Russia’s Gazprom Neft will be given 45 days to exit ownership of Serbian oil company NIS, which is among the biggest contributors to Serbia’s budget.

NIS is majority owned by Gazprom Neft, which owns 50% of the shares, and Russia’s Gazprom, which owns 6.15% of the shares. The Serbian government owns 29.87%, while minority shareholders represent the rest.

Bulgaria also reported earlier this week that Azerbaijan had suspended contractual gas supplies from January 7 to 11 for unspecified technical reasons.