Serbia–North Macedonia gas link: 145 km, pipes for 15 km by end of October, completion in Q1 2028
First works are planned near Vranjska Banja, and land expropriation is cited as the main risk to the schedule.
Serbia plans to begin building the gas pipeline that will link it to North Macedonia, aiming for completion in the first quarter of 2028. According to the October 7 report, the Serbian section is 145 kilometers long. Initial works near Vranjska Banja will cover about 5 kilometers, and pipes for about 15 kilometers are expected to be available by the end of October. No start date for pipe laying was given.
The cost and the source of financing were not stated in the text I checked. Headlines in other media mention a figure of 153 million euros, but I could not confirm that figure in the report itself, so I do not treat it as established.
Where is the Macedonian side? The report does not describe the Macedonian section of this route. It only says that North Macedonia is working on a separate connection with Greece, expected around mid-2027. That means the pipeline from the north and the link from the south have different deadlines and are in different phases.
The biggest risk to the schedule, according to the report, is land: purchase and expropriation are a “material schedule risk”, and the state company Srbijagas is responsible for resolving open issues along the route. In infrastructure projects it is precisely such procedures that most often delay the start of construction, so the 2028 deadline should be read as a target, not a guarantee.
What would this mean for Macedonian supply? An additional link from the north would give an additional import option, but only if it is completed, if there is gas under contract and if the transmission network in North Macedonia can take it. None of those three is clarified in the available data.
The concrete data at this moment are the pipes, the first 5-kilometer section and the 2028 deadline. Everything else, from volumes to price, is still open.
What is not known? It is not known how much the project costs, who finances it and when exactly pipe laying will start. It is also unknown how much gas would flow along this line, at what price and from whom. It is unclear when the Macedonian side would be completed and whether the 2028 deadline will survive the expropriation.
What does it mean? The pipeline from Serbia has been announced and is starting to take shape, but there is a long way from pipes to gas in the Macedonian network. Until the price, the capacity and the deadline for the Macedonian side are known, it is a project in preparation, not a new source of supply.
MKNews Hub · Macedonia · October 22, 2026
