The Minister of Mining and Energy, Dubravka Đedović, visited Smederevo today as a guest of the City Administration. On this occasion, a working meeting was held at the City Administration, attended, in addition to Minister Đedović, by Dragiša Lazarević, Director of the Directorate for Energy Reserves, Saša Koković, Special Adviser to the Minister, and Milan Macura, Assistant Minister for Energy Efficiency. On behalf of the City of Smederevo, the meeting was attended by Mayor Jovan Beč, the Deputy President of the City Assembly of Smederevo, Branče Stojanović, and the Member of the City Council Maja Ćirković.
The meeting focused on the state of the boiler houses in Smederevo and on how the Ministry will support the switch to gas, a more environmentally friendly fuel. After the meeting at the City Administration, representatives of the Ministry and the City of Smederevo toured the petroleum products storage facility in Smederevo, where new tanks are being built.
“It was a real pleasure to welcome Minister Dubravka Đedović to the City Administration, where we held a working meeting. We briefed the Minister on some of the key issues for the City of Smederevo, the most important of which is certainly the state of the boiler houses. I can tell you that the design for the Miloja Đaka boiler house has been completed and that in the coming period we expect to resolve the property issue. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Minister Đedović and the Ministry for providing fifteen million dinars for energy efficiency, with the City setting aside ten million dinars. In the next forty days or so we will complete the selection of contractors, after which a call for applications will be published, so I invite all citizens to apply,” Mayor Beč told the media.
In her address, Minister Đedović said that her aim was above all to visit Smederevo and to discuss existing projects with the Mayor, both in energy efficiency and regarding the problems the City faces with heating on heavy fuel oil. “It is important for us to keep encouraging citizens to invest in energy efficiency measures. I took the opportunity to visit the oil and petroleum products storage facility. Here we have six tanks with a total capacity of 120,000 m3, which will be able to store up to some 100,000 tonnes of oil. Every additional quantity of oil and petroleum products that can be secured and stored in our country and kept in reserve means additional energy security for our country, our citizens and our economy. Two tanks are almost finished, and construction work on the remaining four will be completed by the end of the year. Just to remind you, at the end of 2022 we increased our reserves of oil and petroleum products by 54 per cent, and we will continue to do so in the coming period.”
A working meeting was also held with the Commodity Reserves Directorate, NIS, and representatives of the Ministry of Mining and Energy and the City Administration of the City of Smederevo.
