Braşov Thermal Power Plant owes its suppliers more than 100 milion lei

Ovidiu Vrânceanu, Braşov

Negotiations between the management of CET Braşov and GDF Suez Energy Romania have not yet reached a consensus. Florin Cuţitei, General Manager of CET Braşov, said that it will halt delivery of warm water to eight of the city"s heat exchange stations - Bartolomeu, Tractorul, Gării, Griviţei, Hărmanului - Zizin, Timiş - Triaj and Florilor. The eight stations service 15,000 of the approximately 33,000 apartments that CET Braşov provides with heat. "Anyway, as these associations pay up their debt, they will be reconnected to the warm water grid", MR. Cuţitei said.

The natural gas supplier announced on Monday, that it would cease delivery of natural gas to CET Braşov, as the latter had over 60 million lei in unpaid debt. On top of that, CET Bra ov owes another 20 million to its coal supplier, and another 25 million lei to the company that transports the coal. Even though it has huge debts, CET Braşov only has 12 million lei in receivables to recover from homeowner associations, as receivables worth 10 million lei were lost forever due to bankruptcies of "Tractorul" and "Rulmentul". For instance, CET Braşov, did not recover any money from the liquidation of "Tractorul".

Florin Cuţitei complains that the economic crisis caused the value of the collateral pledged by CET Braşov last spring to drop from 44.35 million lei to approximately 30 million lei. He said: "At any rate, GDF expect payment. We asked for a 3 million lei subsidy from Bucharest, but we can"t get it before July 1st, as the funds allocated for the first quarter have already run out".

The Minister of the Economy, Adriean Videanu, said that the solution for heating cities where thermal power plants (CETs) exist, could be the construction of high efficiency cogeneration plants, by partnerships between mayoralties and Romgaz.