The Romanian interim Minister of Energy, Virgil Popescu, states that Romania explores various solutions to help Moldova overcome the crisis in the energy sector. In an interview given to the Digi 24 television station, the minister declared that “Romania will send fuel oil to Chișinău as long as it is needed.”

The official claims that refineries in Romania can produce a sufficient amount of fuel oil to help Moldova.

“Currently, we do not deliver natural gas at the full capacity to Moldova. We ensure a balance at the border through this Iași-Ungheni-Chișinău gas pipeline. We are exploring various solutions to help Moldova. We are trying to help and meet the request from Moldova and, probably, this can be resolved quite quickly. Romania will send fuel oil to Chișinău as needed. Refineries in Romania can produce enough fuel oil, both for domestic consumption and to help Moldova,” said Virgil Popescu.

The interim Romanian Minister of Energy is convinced that Moldova will not run out of natural gas.

”We are studying all the solutions, to have permanent contact both at the level of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at the level of the Ministry of Energy and Transgaz directly with the transport operator from Moldova (…). I am convinced that Moldova will not run out of gas,” the official stressed.

The Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development, Andrei Spînu, announced on Wednesday, October 20, the discussions with the Romanian Ministry of Energy in order to purchase fuel oil.

“I inform you that I discuss with the Romanian Ministry of Energy and I made an official request to purchase additional fuel oil for the heating season and I hope to have a response from colleagues in Romania very soon,” said Spînu.

During his visit to Poland, Spînu claims that he met with the Minister of Energy of Warsaw, Piotr Naimski, and discussed with him the possibility of Moldova receiving natural gas from Poland.

On October 19, Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilița announced that Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration Vlad Kulminski will leave for Moscow on Thursday, October 21, to continue negotiations on the contract between Gazprom and Moldovagaz, and in November, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nicu Popescu, is going to have a meeting with the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Serghei Lavrov, on the topic of natural gas supply of Moldova.

“I reaffirm that the position of Moldova in these discussions will be the extension of the contract based on the conditions for 2020-2021 and, in addition, we will discuss the accumulated historical debts, including the implementation of the energy package 3 in the gas field.

(…). Termoelectrica started working on fuel oil at the end of last week. It had 800 tons of fuel oil in its reserve. On Friday, we will approve another Government decision by which we will allocate from the state reserve approximately 16,500 tons of fuel oil and we still have the state reserve which is secret. At the current stage, there is no risk that Termoelectrica will run out of fuel oil for the heating season,” said Andrei Spînu during a press conference.

On October 13, a state of alert was issued in Moldova in the natural gas sector so that the responsible institutions can take concrete measures to protect the citizens and the energy security of the country.