Gas supply companies should develop a long-term gas purchase plan and submit it within 60 days to diversify gas purchases for household consumers for 12 months
This is one of the recommendations that were formulated following the results of the public hearings held in the Parliament on the increase of tariffs for natural gas and its impact on consumers and the national economy. The chairman of the parliamentary committee on economy, budget and finance, Radu Marian, said that Moldova does not have its own gas and depends on the gas quotations when buying it on the exchanges, but the country should switch to the free market to buy gas. He admitted that there were mistakes in the process of buying gas for this heating season, including because the inter-institutional cooperation was not at the best level and the long-term planning was insufficient. Radu Marian said that it is necessary to understand the complexity of the situation with gas supplies in terms of the fact that the Transnistrian region, after the possible termination of the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine and the refusal of Gazprom to supply gas through alternative routes, may be left without gas at all. And if for the right bank of the Dniester, which pays for gas, its purchase does not pose a problem, then for the left bank of the Dniester it will be necessary to look for solutions to provide gas to the citizens of Transnistria, so that the right bank does not pay for its consumption through a tariff. Radu Marian said that the companies that supply gas to consumers should have a plan of long-term gas purchases, not to buy it at once, but to have separate contracts, different suppliers, different price formulas, annual, quarterly, in order to buy gas for consumers in advance, as in Europe. The chairman of the parliamentary committee on economy, budget and finance, among other recommendations, advised the Energy Ministry to avoid interfering with the gas purchase process with its own estimates of its value, urging the Ministry not to interfere in the daily activity of professional traders, but to make additional efforts at its level to diversify the suppliers, to establish indicators of achievements for the companies in order to evaluate their performance based on these indicators. Radu Marian said that Energocom needs to have a plan to increase the number of clients, to work more actively on the regional market, to increase profitability, in order to replenish the treasury through dividends from profits. He also recommended that the company develop a plan to work on the Moldovan retail market, and that the National Agency for Energy Regulation should better explain to consumers the transition to the free market and the benefits of this process. He also urged the energy regulator to carry out a more detailed and efficient analysis of the companies' expenses when approving new tariffs. // 03.11.2024 - InfoMarket.
