Natalia Gavrilița answers Vladimir Putin: The Republic of Moldova decides on its own where to store its gas
The Republic of Moldova is a sovereign country and it decides on its own where to store the gas it procures. This is the response of Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilița after the leader of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, was outraged by the fact that the gas purchased by the Republic of Moldova from Gazprom is stored on the territory of Ukraine, IPN reports.
"The Republic of Moldova is a sovereign country and the gas it procures and pays for can be stored where it decides. We do not have natural gas stocks in the Republic of Moldova, we store a certain amount of natural gas in Romania, but there the stocks are quite full, and we store certain quantities in Ukraine, because there are storage capacities and because these stocks are safe. That's why we are free to store the gas that we procure and pay for where we decide," Natalia Gavrilița said in response in an interview with Vocea Bessarabiei.
Two days ago, the president of the Russian Federation expressed his bewilderment at Chisinau's decision to keep its gas stocks in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin asked the Russian Energy Minister to analyse the situation.
At the same time, the Prime Minister assures that signing the contract with MGRES is an advantageous decision for both sides, as it offers citizens electricity at a lower price and the possibility to avoid disconnections in case of new bombings on Ukraine.
"Signing the contract with MGRES also helped us to get a better price, and to ensure that when there are these bombings on critical infrastructure in Ukraine we have the possibility to either avoid them or to recover the frequency and energy in the system much faster, because, in fact, it is a production on our territory, even if it is uncontrolled. At the same time, we realise very well that we have to do all the analyses correctly, have economic justification and communicate with people about the importance of this decision. It was consulted with our partners, so it is about a decision in a wider context and it was analysed and consulted before it was taken", Gavrilița also said.
Following the signing of the contract with MGRES, the right bank of the Dniester procures electricity from the Cuciurgan Power Plant at a price of 73 US dollars/MW. The reduction in the purchase price led ANRE to revise down the electricity tariffs. Now the price of energy provided by Premier Energy is 4.62 lei/kWh, instead of 5.91 lei/kWh. Also, FEE Nord consumers pay 4.65 lei/kWh, instead of 5.60 lei/kWh.
