Slovakia's Eustream Testing of Hungarian Gas Link Delayed

Technical problems have caused a delay of testing operations at a new gas pipeline connecting Slovakia and Hungary, the Slovak pipeline operator Eustream said on Friday.

It said that problems on the Hungarian side may postpone opening the interconnector on Feb. 1, 2015, a date already shifted from a previously intended January start.

The interconnector is being built to widen options for gas flows in central Europe and make the region more resilient to potential disruptions of supplies from Russia via Ukraine.

Eustream said it would launch capacity sales for the pipeline as soon as the technical issues at Hungary's Szada compressor station are resolved.

Reporting by Jan Lopatka