Romania expresses readiness to supply Azerbaijani gas to Moldova

Romania is ready to supply gas from Azerbaijan to Moldova or other countries in the region in the cold season.

According to Azernews, this was stated by Romanian Energy Minister Sebastian Burduja in his comment to the Agerpres agency.

"If we have special requests from Moldova or other states in the region, we are ready to activate the option with Azerbaijan secured by Romania last spring, through which we have access to 1 billion cubic metres of gas," he said. If even this volume is not enough, we have the possibility to import liquefied natural gas via the Greece-Bulgaria-Romania or Turkiye-Bulgaria-Romania route."

Until 2021, Moldova bought gas only from Russia's Gazprom. Now gas supplies are provided by the state-owned company Energocom, which buys them on the market. It uses Romania's commodity exchange platform and direct contracts with companies from Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria.

The Moldovan government has tasked Energocom with purchasing and storing at least 450 million cubic metres of gas in Romania and Ukraine for the heating season. As of October 7, Energocom has purchased a total of more than 500 million cubic metres of gas and continues to purchase more in order to fully cover Moldova's consumption during the cold season.

Further to the report, Moldova consumes about 1.3 billion cubic metres of gas per year.