European natural gas operators discuss new gas routes, market's reform in Chisinau

Chisinau, 20 April /MOLDPRES/ - The new gas supply routes in south-eastern Europe can provide opportunities for Moldova and its citizens, who will have access to diverse gas sources at competitive prices. The integration on the regional market in Chisinau today was discussed at a workshop organized by the Energy Ministry, European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSO-G) and the Energy Community’ Secretariat.  

According to the Energy Ministry, European and native experts discussed the main challenges, aspects dealing with the regulation of the natural gas market, transposition and implementation of the network codes, obligation to make gas stocks, models of separation of gas transport systems operators (unbundling) from the neighbour countries, as well as the importance of developing the natural gas sector with low emissions of carbon.  

At the same time, the sides discussed the opportunity of using the European energy platform of joint gas procurement. The platform is set to coordinate the actions and negotiations of EU with external providers, in order to benefit from Union’s weight on the world gas market and get better conditions for all EU’s consumers. The joint acquisitions of natural gas within this Platform are planned to be launched in the second quarter of this year.  

Another subject was the ensuring of the security of supply with gas at the EU’s level and the measures planned in the 2023-2024 heating season, including measures for diversifying the routes and sources of supply with natural gas. ‘’In the last season, Energocom was the first company of the region to use the ‘’vertical corridor’’ Greece-Bulgaria-Romania-Moldova-Ukraine. Thus, Moldova comes up with a proposal of energy security in the gas sector to the European countries – a transport route due to allow a better turning to account of the underground gas deposit from Ukraine,’’ Energy Minister Victor Parlicov said.     

Besides the diversification of the supply sources, Moldova will harmonize its legal framework to the European one and the well-structured transport tariffs will allow the country become attractive for transit.  

The event was backed by the fund of counselling in policies project, implemented by the Germany Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).   

Photo: Energy Ministry