LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS: "Romania, Bulgaria and Macedonia, the most affected by a possible shut-down of the Russian gas"

The London School of Economics analysts argue that only a part of Europe will be seriously affected by a possible shut-down of the gas exports, due to the stressed situation in Ukraine, reports standartnews.com.

They argue: "One of the biggest concerns of the European Union on the situation in Crimea is the dependence on the Russian gas imports, that cross Ukraine´s territory in proportion of 60%. Still, the risk of gas supply of the Western Europe is low. Instead, the problem may be a regional one, of Bulgaria, Macedonia and Romania, that will not last more than two months without the Russian imports".

According to the cited source, the relations between Ukraine and Russia remain stressed due to the debts accumulated by Naftogaz to Gazprom. The Russian giant threatens that starting from April, the discount agreed will no longer be granted to Ukraine.

But last week, the Managing Director of Gazprom, Alexei Miller, stated that the Russian giant still delivers natural gas via Ukraine, despite Kiev´s debt accumulation. Alexei Miller added that Ukraine currently owes Gazprom the amount of $ 1.8 billion.

 London School of Economics considers that other countries in Central and Eastern Europe will not face urgent matters, due to the gas stocks they hold, provided that the suspension of deliveries through Ukraine lasts no more than two months. Thus, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Slovakia have sufficient gas stocks in deposits to cope with a disruption of supplies of 2-3 months, according to the cited source, who pointed out: " Except for Great Britain and Netherlands, relatively small amounts of natural gas within the EU are extracted, although some of the member states such as Denmark, Germany, Italy and Romania have a limited level of internal production. As a result, about two thirds of the EU's gas consumption comes from outside the community block".

 The study drawn up by London School of Economics indicates the existence of three main suppliers of EU´s inlet pipelines: Russia, Norway and Algeria, together with a few liquefied natural gas suppliers, particularly in Qatar. The document also states that Bulgaria is the only country of the Eastern Europe that doesn´t have sufficient gas storage facilities that would replace imports; "Romania too, doesn´t have enough storage to help Bulgaria. Romania has a connection of 9.2 million cubic meters per day at Medieşu Aurit with Ukraine and could have access to Ukraine´s deposits, although this is not certain".

The gas imports for our country are completely monopolized by Gazprom stated recently, Iulian Iancu, the president of the Industry Committee from the Chamber of Deputies. He said: "It is said that we can bring gas into the country through Szeged-Arad pipeline, but Gazprom has leased the part of the pipeline crossing on the Hungarian territory. Therefore, Gazprom has monopolized our country´s gas inputs and outputs".

The statements of the deputy Iancu contradict those of the president Traian Băsescu, who recently stated that Romania is not dependent on the gas imports from the Russian Federation and can substitute them by other forms of energy or gas supply. The President claims that we can get gas from Norway through the interconnector with Hungary.

     • Romania and Bulgaria could participate in the construction of a liquefied gas terminal in Greece

     Companies from Romania and Bulgaria are negotiating with Greece´s natural gas distributor, DEPA , the participation in a project that aims to the construction of a floating terminal for liquefied natural gas in Kavala harbour, in Northern Greece , reports Mediafax. "DEPA is unable to fund the project itself, it will be multinational. We are currently negotiating with companies from Bulgaria and Romania on their involvement in the project," said DEPA´s deputy director of operations, Spiros Paleoyiannis, quoted by the GrReporter Greek portal. The regasification terminal would reach on a medium term to a capacity of 5 billion cubic meters per year.

The gas supplies towards Romania and Bulgaria could be done through the gas pipelines interconnection of the national networks of the EU member states, whose construction is supported by European funds.