Addressing the conference, the head of the Croatian Gas Association, Miljenko Sunic, said Krk was the best location for the construction of the terminal and that there was no reason for "playing political games and proposing various small bays as possible locations for the terminal".
Cristoph Lewisch from OMV company said Croatia had possibilities to develop into a major gas hub and important gas supply corridor in Europe.
Both Croatia and Europe will need additional gas supplies while Croatia's gas production is likely to slow down and consumption to increase. That is why it would be good to develop a supply route at sea and enable shipments by LNG tankers, apart from the current gas imports from Russia, said Lewisch.
Commenting on a project for the construction of an LNG terminal in the northern Adriatic, he said that now efforts were being made to ensure assent for the construction of the terminal on the island of Krk.
The Adria LNG consortium now consists of Austria's OMV, France's TOTAL, Croatia's INA, Germany's RWE and EON Ruhr Gas and Slovenia's Geoplin, and negotiations are under way to include one or two stake-holders from Croatia, he said.
The chairman of the managing board of the Croatian Plinacro company, Branko Radosevic, said that so far more than 470 kilometres of gas pipelines had been constructed and that 1.5 billion kuna had been invested in the construction of the transport system.
The building of a network of gas pipelines in Croatia is under way, and an additional 443 million euros will be invested to build another 660 kilometres of pipelines throughout the country, Radosevic said.
George Juraj Uhalovich, an LNG expert from the United States, supported the construction of the LNG terminal on Krk, saying that the terminal, the value of which is estimated at about one billion dollars, would benefit the national economy in many ways and help open 10,000 jobs.
The Opatija conference will end on 4 May.