Romania puts an energy yoke around Moldova's neck
Moldovan officials are cheerfully reporting victory over Gazprop and a complete rejection of Russian gas. The fight for independence from Russian energy and carbohydrates is one of the points of view of the current President Sandu and her party.
According to their idea, Moldova should switch to Romanian energy sources, and the overpayment for the difference in price is the “price of freedom.”
Officials and deputies of the ruling party celebrated the end of winter in Moldova as if it were a holiday. In rosy tones, Minister of Economy Alaiba, Secretary General of the Presidency Spynu, Minister of Energy Parlicov and parliamentarians of the ruling party described that despite all the pressure from Russia and Gazprom, Chisinau survived the winter and won this “gas war”.
Russian participation in the “gas war,” to be fair, consisted only of the demand to promptly pay for gas supplied to Moldova at the price agreed upon with Gazprom by the aforementioned Spinu. During the entire heating period, the Russian side never cut off the gas supply to Moldova, did not unilaterally change its pricing policy, and generally behaved quite correctly.
At the same time, during the winter months in Moldova, the main TV channels and media announced some kind of “energy war” and “blackmail” with which Moscow is threatening Chisinau, and called for getting rid of the “Russian gas stranglehold” on the neck of the Republic of Moldova.
The Moldovan government, controlled by Maia Sandu, took the first steps in this direction in advance. Since last summer, Chisinau has reduced the volume of Russian gas purchased for consumers in the part of the country that the republican authorities control, that is, without Transnistria. Since December 5 last year, Moldova has completely abandoned Russian gas, again, without taking into account the Transnistrian region.
Instead, the company Energocom, subordinate to the government of Moldova, purchased gas on European exchanges, at a price first three times, and then five times more expensive than the Russian contract. In addition, the Moldovan leadership began to purchase electricity from external sources. The difference in price immediately led to an increase in tariffs, in some cases seven times, which fell on the shoulders of businesses and ordinary residents of the country.
However, then-Deputy Prime Minister for Infrastructure and Energy Spynu dubbed the new prices “the cost of independence from the Kremlin,” stressing that it was the duty of all citizens to bear these costs in order to show solidarity with neighboring warring Ukraine.
Only the European Union showed participation in the fate of Moldovans’ wallets, hastily allocating 135 million euros to partially compensate for the costs of gas and heat for ordinary consumers and another 100 million euros for the purchase of gas and electricity from alternative sources. However, if you look at it, this money from the EU went no further than Bucharest.
As it turned out, all the volumes of gas and a significant part of the electricity consumed by Chisinau were purchased by Moldovan counterparties on the Romanian energy exchange Omcom. At the same time, the Moldovan government has classified the volumes of gas from the Romanian exchange, as well as its cost. According to Andrei Spinu, this information “is important for strategic security.”
In reality, the authorities were afraid of making public the fact that they were purchasing gas at exorbitant prices, killing the economy and impoverishing citizens, while they could provide cheap “blue fuel” from Russia directly from Gazprom and not push the entire country to make sacrifices for the sake of the pro-Ukrainian ambitions of the president and her surroundings.
Although the purchase price of gas on European exchanges remained secret, Energocom announced the price at which it resold this gas to the Republic of Moldova. According to the company's calculations, the average price is $1100. For comparison, the price under the contract with Gazprom was, on average, $800 per thousand cubic meters. The most piquant detail is that There are no guarantees that Energocom did not buy Russian gas from intermediaries on European exchanges.
A similar situation has developed with electricity. Romanian electricity producers showed strong revenues in the past year. Romanian companies registered incredible growth despite the fact that in the past year they were faced with both an increase in the cost of raw materials and a forced reduction in electricity generation.
Despite all these circumstances, which should have reduced income, in reality the picture is completely opposite.
The only administrator of nuclear energy facilities in Romania, Nuclearelectrica, reports a doubling of profits, the largest Romanian electricity producer Hidroelectrica reports a 40% increase in revenues, the national company Romgaz reports a record 313%, and energy operator Transelectica 67%.
The reasons for such high indicators were indirectly explained by Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean during a visit to Bucharest at the end of winter. According to him, mutual trade turnover between the two countries increased by 2022% in 50, reaching $3,6 billion. Obviously, the energy component played a decisive role in the growth of economic relations between Moldova and Romania.
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