Public Property Agency of Moldova provides new details on privatization of state enterprise Vestmoldtransgaz

Chisinau, 2 July /MOLDPRES/ - The privatization of the state enterprise Vestmoldtransgaz by the limited company Eurotransgaz, set up by Transgaz, Romania, was accepted by the commission for holding commercial and investment tenders on turning private public property. Following an investment tender, organized within the process of privatization of public assets in Moldova, the Eurotransgaz company was nominated winner, the Public Property Agency (AAP) reported today.      

The construction of the gas pipeline Ungheni-Chisinau represents the second stage of carrying out the project on interconnection of the gas transport systems from Moldova and Romania. The new gas pipeline will finish the connection of the gas transport systems of Romania and Moldova, being a prolongation of the first part of the Iasi-Ungheni pipeline, opened for use in 2014.   

APP said that, within negotiations on the contract on sale and purchase, decision-makers established that, to carry out the transaction on sale and purchase in conditions of strict lawfulness and to ensure continuity of the enterprise’s work and possibility of carrying out on term the investment project assumed by the buyer, it was necessary to fulfill suspensive conditions, before the switch of the privatized assets to the property of the buyer.    

The buyer is to ensure the transfer from Moldova’s state budget of the entire selling price of the single patrimonial complex – Vestmoldtransgaz, with all rights and obligations, and initiate works of constructing the natural gas pipeline on the direction Ungheni-Chisinau, according to the technical project elaborated to this end, in way established, with the competent authorities from Moldova.   

The requirements for starting the procedure of construction of the gas pipeline on the direction Ungheni-Chisinau “are fulfilled in line with the terms set within the negotiations on carrying out the project.”  

Participants in a meeting chaired by the prime minister last week informed that the procedure of reorganizing Vestmoldtransgaz from state enterprise into a limited company started on 29 June. Eurotransgaz confirmed intention to assume  obligation of constructing the gas pipeline Ungheni-Chisinau in a period of up to two years and commitment to invest up to 93 million euros on this purpose. The pipeline will have a length of 120 km and will annually carry 1.5 billion cubic metres of gas from Romania to Moldova.

„There are 13 suspensive conditions which should be fulfilled jointly by both sides,” PM Pavel Filip stressed. According to the information unveiled, six conditions are presently fulfilled, another three ones will be regarded automatically carried out once the process is finished and the Moldovan and the Romanian sides are jointly working on the implementation of four of the conditions. The last four conditions refer to the submission by the enterprise of a notification to the Competition Council on the title to Vestmoldtransgaz and the economic concentration; issuance by the Moldovan authorities of the construction authorization; providing to the enterprise of the right to use the lands affected by the current gas pipeline..  

(Reporter V. Bercu, editor M. Jantovan)