Bosnia-Herzegovina approved Wednesday a long-delayed $1.5 billion energy project led by investors close to U.S. President Donald Trump that aims to reduce the Balkan country's reliance on Russian natural gas.
The project is being pushed by AAFS Infrastructure and Energy LLC, a newly created company headed by Joseph Flynn, the brother of Trump's former adviser Michael Flynn, and Jesse Binnall, previously one of Trump's lawyers.
Including a gas pipeline as well as thermal power plants, it also seeks to replace coal-based electricity production in a country badly affected by air pollution.
The law approving the project, called the Gas Pipeline Southern Interconnection, was passed by the upper house of the Bosniak-Croat parliament a week after securing approval from the lower chamber.
The pipeline will bring U.S. natural gas to Bosnia from a liquefied natural gas terminal in Croatia.
AAFS' director in Sarajevo, Amir Bekan, said the total value of the company's investment in Bosnia came to around $1.5 billion, with most of the amount accounted for by the pipeline, but with around $300 million for the modernization of the airports in Sarajevo and Mostar.
Environmental groups criticized the deal, with two NGOs urging lawmakers ahead of the vote to reject a "harmful project" that they say carries "serious legal and financial risks."
They also claimed the decision to approve it was "made hastily, under enormous political pressure from the fossil fuel lobby of the U.S. administration."
The next step in the process is signing of an agreement between AAFS and the Bosniak-Croat Federation, one of two autonomous regions making up postwar Bosnia. The other is the Serb Republic.
An agreement is also needed between Bosnia and Croatia.
That deal is expected to be signed at a summit meeting in Dubrovnik later this month.
It would be the first project of this scale for AAFS, which was set up as a company only in late 2025, according to U.S. regulatory filings.
The pipeline will connect Bosnia to the European network, notably the liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on Croatia's northern island of Krk, which receives significant volumes of U.S. gas.
No details have been announced about the start of construction work, but the project is considered to be of major importance for Bosnia, which would be affected by the European Union's ban on Russian gas imports set to come into effect in 2027.
The new interconnection will have a maximum annual capacity of 3 billion cubic meters, enough to supply three or four gas-fired power plants whose construction is also planned.
Observers have cautioned that Bosnia's complex and fragmented legal system may slow down procedures, especially those related to the expropriation of state-owned land on the pipeline's route.
Natural gas accounts for up to 8% of Bosnia's energy requirement and is supplied solely by Russia via Serbia through the TurkStream pipeline as the country does not have any reserves of its own.
