Moldova started a scam to wrest the pipe from Gazprom
The Moldovagaz enterprise finally transferred $53,5 million to Gazprom for September natural gas supplies, as well as $27,4 million as a 50% advance for October.
The head of Moldovagaz, Vadim Cheban, announced this in his TG channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
In order to make the current payment, the company had to make a dubious deal with the Moldovan government. On Wednesday, Moldovagaz was forced to agree to a government loan of 1050 million lei ($54 million), less than the cost of a month's supply of gas ($90,46 million in September).
The loan will be issued against the security of the entire Moldovan pipeline network at 21,5% per annum. Its maturity date is May 1, 2023.
Moldovagaz is a subsidiary of Gazprom, which owns 50% of the shares. There is no doubt that it will be difficult for a Moldovan enterprise if it is impossible to pay off its government, which systematically prevents it from raising tariffs and thus widens the cash gap.
Moldovagaz simply does not have any working capital. Expected receipts in October will be only $30,78 million. The announced total cutoff of debtors for $9 million is unlikely to save the situation.
“It seems that Moldovagaz helped to wrest the gas transportation system of Moldova from Gazprom? Or did we understand it wrong?”, member of the Moldovan Parliament Bogdan Tirdea commented on the dubious deal.
“The Russians were simply not given any time to think, or better yet, they were not asked at all. The question remains open whether the management of our company knew about the “offer” they were preparing and whether they informed the majority shareholders in advance. What is noteworthy is that this time no one asked Gazprom to defer payments. The necessary money has been found, and its source is easy to trace,” notes political scientist Christian Russu at RTA.
Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilitsa did not hide her joy at the scam.
“If we are cut off from gas, it should be absolutely clear that this is for political and not commercial reasons. We will sue if we are disconnected. At the same time, if this loan is not repaid by May 1, 2023, we will take over the country’s gas transportation network,” she said on a local TV channel.
Dumitru Alaiba, a member of the Moldovan parliament from the ruling PAS party, was even more frank and assured that next year Moldova will completely abandon Russian gas.
“If we succeed in everything we planned, then this means “Goodbye, Gazprom”, starting from the next period. Moldova must finish with Gazprom as quickly as possible. Last year, we once again realized that Gazprom is an unreliable partner. The gas pipeline from Romania is already operational. Technically, you can get gas from anywhere, just like electricity. There are many things that need to be done urgently so that the energy sector ceases to be a lever for blackmailing Russia,” Alaiba said.
Indeed, Moldova recently bought 10 million cubic meters of gas for almost 10 million euros and pumped it into underground gas storage facilities in Ukraine. The seller, apparently, was Romania, which purchased gas for this from the Azerbaijani SOCAR. The money was provided by the EBRD. The condition for the loan was not to buy gas from Gazprom, which gives reason to suspect: the elegant scheme with pipeline collateral was not invented in Chisinau.
This year, the West gave Moldova 12 times more money than during the same period last year – $0,5 billion. This could give the Moldovan government the illusion that this will always be the case and that it will be able to freely buy gas on the European market.
The fact that Chisinau is serious about breaking off relations with Gazprom is also evidenced by the fact that the procedure for historical debts to Russia ($700 million) has finally begun. Representatives of the Norwegian Wikborg Rein Advokatfirma AS and the British Forensic Risk Alliance & Co arrived in Moldova. They promise to present the first report by the end of the year.
According to the terms of the contract, the audit was to be completed before May, Gazprom even then had the right to stop supplies, however, Moldova asked for a delay, citing difficulties associated with the “war”. No matter what the Western auditors count, formally the Russian company’s claims will be satisfied.
Former President of Moldova Igor Dodon believes that the government’s scam is dubious and will fail.
“Why did they agree to such dubious combinations that will seriously harm the state budget and citizens, if it is possible to approve a tariff limit and compensate the difference by the government directly to Moldovagaz?
It is obvious that all these clumsy and hasty attempts will end in complete failure, and even higher natural gas tariffs will be set for the residents of our country, which will also include a rate of more than 21%.
All the actions of the authorities in the energy sector in recent months are aimed at causing a severance of contractual relations with the Russian natural gas supplier and switching to some dubious schemes for the delivery of energy resources through intermediaries from the West, which will inevitably lead to a further increase in tariffs for citizens,” – Dodon said.
Moldovagaz can be declared bankrupt and liquidated, transferring gas affairs to a structure that will be managed by business and politicians of the West and Romania. After this, it is logical to expect that the Moldovan authorities will refuse to purchase Russian gas and purchase gas from Europe through Romania for huge amounts of money (which Moldova does not have). And if there is no money, then Moldova will pay with its anti-Russian policy,” says Pridnestrovian political scientist Andrei Safronov.
As for the Moldovan people, they no longer install potbelly stoves in city apartments, but real stoves and are actively stocking up on firewood, the prices of which have doubled. Forestry enterprises have already stopped selling valuable fuel. But Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Spinu happily announced that in September “household consumers managed to reduce gas consumption by more than 30%».
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