
New gas supply routes to Southeastern Europe will grant Moldova access to various gas sources at competitive prices.
The Ministry of Energy reported that this and other issues related to integration in the regional gas market were discussed at a seminar in Chisinau organized by the Ministry of Energy, the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSO-G) and the Energy Community Secretariat. European and Moldovan experts approached the main issues in Moldova, such as some aspects of natural gas market regulation, transposition and implementation of natural gas network codes, gas storage obligation, unbundling models for gas transmission system operators from neighboring countries and the importance of developing a low-carbon natural gas sector. The possibility of using the European Energy Platform for joint procurement of natural gas was also discussed. The platform involves EU coordination and negotiation with external suppliers in order to benefit from the EU's share of the global gas market and to achieve better conditions for all EU consumers. Joint natural gas purchases under the Platform are to begin in the second quarter of this year. Another topic of discussion was the security of natural gas supply at the EU level and the measures planned by the EU for this purpose for the next heating season 2023-2024. "Last season, Energocom was the first in the region to use the "vertical corridor" Greece-Bulgaria-Romania-Moldova-Ukraine. Thus, Moldova has for European countries a proposal for energy security in the gas sphere - a transport route, which will allow better exploitation of underground gas deposits of Ukraine," said Victor Parlicov, Minister of Energy of Moldova. According to him, besides diversification of supply sources, Moldova will harmonize its legal framework with the European one and transparent and well-structured transport tariffs will allow our country to become attractive for transit. The event was supported by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). // 20.04.2023 – InfoMarket