The debt of "Moldovagaz" to "Gazprom" at the end of 2020 exceeded 508 billion 624 million rubles or 6.88 billion in dollar terms.
As follows from the financial statements published by Gazprom for 2020, accounts receivable "Moldovagaz" amounted to zero million rubles as of December 31, 2020 and at December 31, 2019, net of an estimated allowance for expected credit losses in the amount of RUB 508 billion 624 million and 412 billion 258 million rubles as of December 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019, respectively. Taking into account that the official exchange rate of the Russian ruble to the US dollar, set by the Central Bank of Russia, as of December 31, 2020 amounted to 73.8757 rubles for $ 1, and as of December 31, 2019 - 61.9057 for $ 1, then in dollar terms the reserve for expected credit losses (the total debt of Moldovagaz to Gazprom, which is largely due to non-payments of the Transnistrian region), was at the end 2020, approximately $ 6 billion 884.9 million, and at the end of 2019 - $ 6 billion 659.5 million. Expected credit losses are a probability weighted estimate of credit losses (i.e. the present value of all expected cash shortfalls) for the entire expected life of the financial instrument. A cash shortfall is the difference between the cash flows owed to an entity under the contract and the cash flows that the entity expects to receive. Since expected credit losses take into account the amount and timing of payments, a credit loss occurs even if the entity expects to receive the full amount in full, but later than the contractual agreement. As InfoMarket reported earlier, Moldovagaz's debt to Gazprom is largely due to the huge debt of the Transnistrian region. The debt for gas from the left bank of the Dniester is recorded by Tiraspoltransgaz LLC. At the same time, Moldovagaz has orders of execution to recover from Tiraspoltransgaz a debt for gas in the amount of over $ 5 billion, but these decisions of the Moldovan courts cannot be enforced on the territory of Transnistria. And in this situation, the resolution of the problem lies in the plane of relations between the shareholders of JSC "Moldovagaz" represented by "Gazprom" and the government of Moldova. Discussions on this issue are ongoing. Every year Gazprom applies to the International Commercial Arbitration Court at the RF Chamber of Commerce and Industry with a claim to recover the debt for natural gas from Moldovagaz. The Russian gas holding as a whole has already won more than 10 lawsuits to recover historical debts from Moldovagaz for a total amount of over $ 7 billion, with about 95% of the debts coming from the Transnistrian region. Herewith, to date, Gazprom has not taken any action to enforce the court decisions on the collection of historical debts from Moldovagaz. The actions of Gazprom, which annually go to court with claims to collect debt for gas from Moldovagaz, are conditioned by the requirements of the Russian currency and customs control authorities on the need to take legal measures to comply with the terms of repatriation of funds. The largest shareholders of the Moldovagaz company are Gazprom (50% of shares), the Moldovan government (35.33%) and the Transnistrian administration (13.44%), which transferred their shares to the trust of the Russian gas holding. // 04.05.2021 — InfoMarket
