
Moldovagaz will start buying gas on the Moldovan gas exchange from May under monthly contracts from those who offer the best price for it.
Energy Minister Victor Parlicov announced this to journalists, recalling that, according to the decision of the Commission for Emergency Situations, by the end of April this year. Moldovagaz will buy natural gas from the state-owned company Energocom, and after that it will return to the normal regime and will buy gas at the stock exchange in Moldova, through a trading platform created by BRM East Energy, a subdivision of the Romanian Commodity Exchange. Victor Parlicov said that there is an operator, the first gas purchases have already taken place in the test mode, and it is planned that every month, gas will be bought at the exchange from the one who offers the best price. For the time being, the mechanism of buying gas on the exchange on the terms of monthly contracts will be introduced, and a comparison will be made with the prices offered by Gazprom, and subsequently it is planned to switch to longer contracts, especially when buying gas in winter periods. It is planned that the functioning of the natural gas trading platform in Moldova will provide all economic operators in this field with the possibility to buy and trade natural gas, ensuring transparency of purchases, correctness of prices, as well as stable operation of the wholesale natural gas market in Moldova. Currently, the price of gas from Gazprom is calculated according to a special formula that takes into account two components, in particular, the cost of a basket of oil products (gasoil and fuel oil) and the value of one of the stock exchange indices (TTF front month) in different proportions. In particular, in Q1 and Q4 of each year, 70% of the gas price for Moldova depends on the value of the basket of oil products (gasoil and fuel oil) and 30% depends on the spot prices for gas on the exchange, while in Q2 and Q3 (from April to September) the reverse formula is used and the gas price is made up of 70% of the average monthly gas price for the previous month and 30% of the price of the oil basket. //13.03.2024 - InfoMarket.