The European Commission calls upon Romania to allow exports of natural gas

The Ministry of the Economy has received a letter from the European Commission, which requests explanations on the Romania"s reason to prevent the exportation of natural gas, sources from the energy market claim. The letter of April 14th is a preliminary action to the new infringement procedure that the European Commission will open against us in the energy sector, after the ones targeting the liberalization of the gas and electricity markets.

Our sources claim that the document received by the Ministry of the Economy does not claim outright that Romania forbids the exportation of natural gas, but alludes that this operation is prevented by the fact that operators are required to have a certain structure of the consumption basket and a specific low price for domestically produced natural gas.

Yesterday, at the "Focus Energetic" seminar, Iulian Iancu, the president of the Industry Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, announced that he has initiated a law which would forbid the exportation of natural gas amid the liberalization of the market for all economic agents. He said that his draft law relies on the fact that Russia is Romania"s only supplier of natural gas, and it imposes a certain price level depending on the relationship it has with each country that buys natural gas from it.

The PSD deputy said: "As a result, we can"t diversify our foreign sources of gas by using the Nabucco and AGRI pipelines, and I think it is fair to prevent the export of natural gas until Romania"s economy exits the crisis. Allowing exports of natural gas at this moment would be the finishing stroke to Romania"s economy, because it would put additional strain on the prices paid by companies, and the industry will be forced to adapt to higher gas prices anyway after the liberalization of the market".

Romania can"t currently export natural gas because it does not have the technical means to deliver gas to its neighboring countries. Transgaz is currently working on adapting the import pipelines to allow this kind of operations.

The Nabucco and AGRI pipelines, designed to transport natural gas from the Caspian Sea and Middle East areas, will become functional again in a few years.