Moldova announces it has enough natural gas reserves for the entire winter

The natural gas supply and distribution company in Moldova, Moldovagaz, announced that it already purchased 747.9mn cubic metres (7.95 TWh) of natural gas, mostly from the Romanian Commodities Exchange East during August-December, thus covering the entire natural gas demand for the entire winter period until the end of March 2025.

The expected termination of Russian gas supplies to Transnistria after January 1 would create a deficit of 513mn cubic metres of natural gas for the winter period and consequently a massive electricity shortage across the whole country.

Gazprom is supposed to deliver 5.7mn cubic metres of gas per day to the separatist Transnistria region, or 171mn cubic metres per month (513mn cubic metres in Q1), with an important part of it being used for the electricity consumed in the entire country – including the territory controlled by the central authorities which can produce less than 10% of its electricity needs.

The weighted average procurement price paid by Moldovagaz was €47.88 per MWh, which is approximately €509.15 or MDL9,842.89 per 1,000 cubic metres,with delivery to the Virtual Trading Point (PVT) of the Republic of Moldova, the company announced.

The Chisinau parliament approved, on the night of December 12 to 13, the introduction of a state of emergency in the energy sector in Moldova for a period of 60 days starting with December 16. 

The measure, requested by the government, is being instituted due to the risk that Transnistria will be left without gas supplies from Gazprom, which would cause the rest of Moldova to face a serious electricity shortage.

Romania’s Energy Minister Sebastian Burduja announced Romania is working on a plan to supply Moldova with energy resources, with the support of other European countries.

Burduja mentioned an electricity deficit of some 600 MW on the Moldovan side. The capacity of the existing interconnectors between the two countries will be increased by 80 MW from 315 MW to 395 MW. Energy companies Nuclearelectrica and Hidroelectrica are already in contact with Moldova’s state owned power trader Energocom to analyse the possibilities of providing additional volumes of electricity to the right bank of the Dniester, namely in the territories controlled by the central authorities, Burduja said. 

Additionally, Burduja said that Romania has natural gas stocks and is analysing priority extraction options in case supplies to the Transnistrian region (thus the electricity production for the whole of Moldova) are affected after January 1.

Increasing the value of the operational balancing account (OBA) between VestMoldTransGaz and Transgaz is considered an essential solution to mitigate the impact in the first days of the crisis, according to the Romanian minister, who suggested that limited amounts of natural gas might be transferred to Moldova to power the energy generation plants in the separatist region.