Deputy Prime Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development Andrei Spinu leaves for Moscow for negotiations with Gazprom.
During a press conference on Wednesday, Spinu said that on October 21 he would join his colleague, Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration Vladislav Kulminski, to continue negotiations on the terms of Russian natural gas supplies to Moldova. “The position of Moldova has not changed, we expect to extend the contract on the terms of 2020 or 2021. The agenda of the negotiations also includes the historical debts of Moldova for gas, the introduction of the III Energy Package and directly the volume and price of Russian gas for Moldova in the current gas year”, - Spinu said, noting that he is negotiating a commercial relationship between Moldovagaz and Gazprom. Spinu stressed that the negotiations are complicated and urged not to speculate on this topic and not to translate it into a geopolitical plane. “For many years Moldova received gas from only one source - from Russia. We started looking for alternative sources to avoid possible crises, ”he said. Andrei Spinu also spoke about his working visit to Poland, during which four meetings were held with representatives of the Polish presidential administration, the Minister of Energy and the leadership of 2 companies that supply and transport gas. “We considered the possibility of buying gas from Poland, including from reserves in underground gas storage facilities located on the territory of Ukraine,” Spinu said, stressing that the Polish side is still exploring options for helping Moldova. Answering journalists' questions, Spinu noted that the heating season for consumers will start on time, Termoelectrica has been using its own fuel oil reserves (about 800 tons) since last week. In the coming days, the government will adopt a decree on the allocation of 16.5 thousand tons of fuel oil from state reserves and, in addition, the possibility of purchasing fuel oil from Romania is being discussed. This will provide all enterprises in the heat supply sector with raw materials for heat production. Speaking about the future compensation mechanism for consumers, Spinu noted that the project provides for two ways to support the population: by limiting the increase in gas tariffs - through NAER, or by compensating tariffs for certain categories of the population, however, the compensation parameters will depend on the purchase price of gas, regardless of from its origin. As expected, Andrei Spinu will present the results of negotiations with Gazprom on Friday. // 20.10.2021 — InfoMarket
