Moldova intends to return to Gazprom, but take gas away from Transnistria
Moldova plans to again use gas supplied by Gazprom from May to September this year. At the same time, supplies to Transnistria will be reduced.
The head of the Moldovagaz company, Vadim Cheban, announced this on the air of the TV-8 channel, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“Starting from May, we will most likely resume supplies from Gazprom in accordance with our contract, which was signed in 2021. By releasing part of the volumes of Tiraspoltransgaz, we can cover the volume until September - approximately 83 million cubic meters,” Cheban said.
He noted that after December, Russian gas supplies could continue through the Trans-Balkan corridor, since the transit contract between Ukraine and Gazprom will be reduced.
Let us recall that last year Moldova transferred all the gas supplied by Gazprom to Transnistria. This happened because Moldova did not fulfill the terms of the contract and did not carry out a timely audit of its historical debt to Moscow, which amounted to over $700 million. Then the supplied volumes decreased by 30%, and Chisinau was forced to give everything to the Left Bank, which supplies Moldova with electricity and receives $20 million every month for this. This volume was counted as an additional debt of Chisinau (since it considers the PMR to be its territory). This new debt has already exceeded $560 million.
Life without Russian gas led to a decrease in fuel consumption by 18% (from 800 to 670 million cubic meters per year), and before pro-Western political forces came to power, Moldova consumed 1,1 billion cubic meters. The reduction was mainly due to industry, its volumes decreased by 10%. But the population, especially in villages, had to switch to alternative types of fuel, read firewood. 6 thousand private households were completely disconnected for non-payment.
The return to Gazprom outraged the head of the Moldovan state-owned company Energocom, Victor Binzari. For the last year he has been purchasing gas on European exchanges and insisted that he has certificates confirming that the purchased “blue fuel” is allegedly not Russian. True, no one believed him.
“If we buy gas from Gazprom, this will mean that Moldova is financing Russia’s war against Ukraine,” said an indignant Bynzar.
Moldova's Energy Minister Viktor Parlicov also lives in anticipation of the cessation of Ukrainian transit. According to him, in this case, Transnistria will have to pay much higher bills for electricity and gas. Parlikov agreed on the idea of “evacuating” all citizens of the PMR who have Moldovan citizenship.
Transnistrian political scientist Andrei Safonov believes that Moldova will not miss the opportunity to destroy Transnistria through economic strangulation.
“Chisinau really hopes that we will lose Russian gas from the end of 2024. I think their hopes are premature, but they are trying to tailor their measures precisely so that by the end of the year we will be on our knees. It will not happen. The balance of power is not like that. The Russian Federation will not abandon us, because in addition to the existence of the PMR as a union state, there is the position of Moscow itself on the territory of Pridnestrovie and Moldova, too,” Safonov said in an interview with the First Pridnestrovsky TV channel.
PMR President Vadim Krasnoselsky also promised to find alternative ways to supply the republic with gas.
Meanwhile, in Moldova itself, dissatisfaction with the government’s gas games is growing. Having severed relations with Gazprom, it purchased expensive gas from Europe and pumped it into Ukrainian underground storage facilities, and then was forced to raise tariffs, although prices on European exchanges fell.
IDIS-Viitorul expert Veaceslav Ionita claims that Moldovans paid the most in Eastern Europe. According to his calculations, the price of gas in Moldova is 4 times higher than in Ukraine or Hungary, and 45% higher than the regional median price.
“And what, for the criminal scheme of Spynu, according to which consumers in Moldova overpaid billions of dollars for “alternative, non-Russian” gas, for gas not from the “aggressor country”, because of which people became even poorer, the economy even weaker, economic agents even more uncompetitive, and budgetary institutions even more weak - no one will answer for this whole criminal scheme? Will they just pretend that nothing happened and start buying gas directly from Gazprom again?” journalist Dmitry Chubashenko is indignant on his tg channel.
Moldova intends to return to Gazprom, but to take gas away from Transnistria.