Romania to store gas at full capacity to shield from potential new crisis, economy minister says
Romania's government will take all necessary measures to store a volume of gas equivalent to the entire storage capacity of 3.015 billion cubic meters to face a potential new gas crisis generated by the ongoing dispute between Russia and Ukraine, declared the Economy Minister, Adriean Videanu.
Another measure taken will be to ensure sufficient stocks of coal and black oil.
Videanu also said the governing coalition talked about the financial jam that some utility providers like Romgaz are faced with and decided that in two-weeks time to find solutions for the problem.
Romania faced a gas crisis at the beginning of the year when it had to do without Russian imported gas for two weeks, following a conflict with Ukraine over the shipping price.
Russia's Gazprom cut off gas supplies which transit Ukraine on January 1. Then, the flow of Russian gas through Romania's Isaccea unit was halted on January 6 and that through the Mediesu Aurit unit was paused on January 7.
Romanian authorities redirected gas supplies of large industrial plants to domestic consumers. Most of the biggest industrial consumers were shut down before the gas crisis started owing to shrinking demand caused by the financial crisis.
Moreover, state reserves were used to provide natural gas to people and authorities pledged Romanians will suffer no effects from this crisis. A few power companies joined in to help agreeing to either provide more gas or import more. Also, the local heating electrical thermal plants CET stopped running on gas to help save it and used black oil.