Serbia switches heating plants to oil from gas: PM

(BELGRADE) - Serbia switched 90 percent of its heating plants to crude oil after Russian natural gas deliveries to the Balkan country were completely halted, Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic said Wednesday.

The supply of Russian natural gas to Serbia came to a stop at midnight (2300 GMT) Tuesday and the government ordered all heating plants in the country to switch to crude oil.

"Oil reserves are sufficient and deliveries to heating plants have continued without problems," Cvetkovic said.

He added that the electric energy system has also been functioning in "full capacity, without problems," but appealed to the citizens to reduce consumption.

The government also ordered local authorities in the towns to reduce street lights and cut off any unnecessary consumption of electric energy.

Although municipal heating systems in majority of Serbia's towns have been functioning without disruption, the average temperature in the flats reached only 18 degrees Celsius, compared to the usual 22 degrees.

However, nine towns in Serbia, with a total population of about 900,000, were not capable of switching to crude oil, local media reported. Most of the crisis-hit consumers are in the northern province of Vojvodina, most reliant on Russian gas piped through Ukraine and Hungary.

Dusan Bajatovic, manager of the national gas company Srbijagas, had tried to secure a loan delivery from neighbouring Hungary, but his talks in Budapest were "unsuccessful," state television RTS reported.

"Due to its own needs, Hungary is not ready at this moment to deliver any amount of gas and we have no other option to try," Bajatovic told RTS.

Earlier Wednesday, Bajatovic said Serbia had at its disposal about a million cubic meters of natural gas from its own production, which was directed to priority consumers.

"But this will not last forever and it's far from enough to maintain the system," Bajatovic said.