You're reading: Moldovan PM: Contract for Russian gas to Moldova to be extended another year

CHISINAU - The Gazprom contract with Moldova to supply the latter with gas will be extended for another year, Moldovan Prime Minister Vlad Filat told the press.

 

“Moldova does not have the time or opportunity to sign a new contract before the end of 2012,” Filat said. So (…) an extension of the old contract valid at this point in time has been agreed. I expressed one principled condition, that it be prolonged, at minimum, for one year’s time,” Filat said, noting that this extension was secured November 16.


Because of the European Union energy packages, Moldova did not have a new agreement signed with Gazprom for natural gas. Its imports are effected on the basis of a quarterly extension of the old contract, which expired December 31 of last year. At present, gas is supplied to Moldova at $380 per thousand cubic meters.


On the legislative level, Moldova is obligated to meet the requirements of the EU’s 2nd Energy Package. With the aim of simplifying the conduct of negotiations over signing a gas contract with Gazprom, the European Commission gave the republic the go-ahead to move from 2017 to 2020 the timeframe for introducing the standards of the 3rd Energy Package.


At the end of October, Moldovan Minister of Economy Valeriu Lazar said that his country should not rush to sign a contract for Gazprom natural gas. “If one puts it on the scales, what is better – to conclude a contract on disadvantageous terms or to extend the old contract. Better to extend the old. And all this time conduct negotiations and get the terms we want. Or arrive at a compromise,” he told Interfax.


“The new contract should differ in principle from the old. We have to come to grips with deliveries on the right and left bank of the Dniester, have to cut the knot with historic debts, so as to clean up the common enterprise JSC Moldova Gaz and give it the opportunity to develop, including the attraction of investment and cutting losses,” Filat said.


Moldova Gaz’s debt to Gazprom, together with penalties, amounts to $500 million, and if the debt of Transdnistria is taken into account, then the debt amount is close to $4 billion, which is more than half of Moldovan GDP – $6.8 billion.