We wait “exceptionally” until September 1 to make the payment
Gazprom agreed “exceptionally” to wait until September 1 for the advance payment that the Republic of Moldova was supposed to make for 50 percent of gas deliveries in August, the Russian company announced on Monday in a statement cited by Interfax.
“Moldovagaz has not fulfilled its contractual obligations towards Gazprom to pay an advance for gas deliveries from August 2022. In this regard, Moldovagaz addressed to Gazprom with the request to postpone the payment until September 1, 2022. Gazprom decided to be exceptionally accepts this request”, states Gazprom in a statement.
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According to the terms of the contract between the two parties, by the 20th of each month, Moldova is obliged to pay in full the cost of natural gas consumed in the previous month and 50% of the cost of gas contracted for the current month.
Moldovagaz paid the debt to Gazprom for the supply of natural gas in July, but announced by the end of Monday, August 22, that it will not be able to pay 50% of the advance payment for the natural gas received from Gazprom in August, and therefore requested a deferral of payment.
“To avoid speculation, I would like to state that today Moldovagaz paid Gazprom the debt for the supply of natural gas in July. At the same time, for the previously announced reasons, the company had to ask the main supplier to postpone the payment for the month of August”, announced the president of Moldovagaz, Vadim Ceban.
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The price of gas for domestic consumers in the Republic of Moldova increased from August 4 to 22.99 lei for a cubic meter, including VAT, according to a natural decision of the National Agency for Energy Regulation. However, Vadim Ceban was not satisfied with the ANRE decision, which established the tariff of almost 23 lei for a cubic meter of gas. He claims that the current price does not cover many of the company’s costs and risks increasing the deficit to 4 billion lei, he reports. agora.md.
The Republic of Moldova will buy gas in August at a price of 1,458.5 dollars per thousand cubic meters, announced Vadim Ceban. That is why the Moldovagaz official asked Gazprom to postpone the payment in advance for the month of August and asked the Commission for Extraordinary Situations to postpone the payment of VAT on natural gas for the period from April to August inclusive, which he got.
The Republic of Moldova buys gas from Gazprom based on a contract concluded last year. The price fluctuates monthly and is calculated from the spot price of gas and oil, depending on the season. However, spot prices have increased considerably this year.
However, the authorities in Chisinau claim that there are sufficient financial reserves to be able to deal with extreme situations, including the total cessation of Russian gas supplies, and they assure that the population will not be left without heat in the winter. There are also alternative sources of natural gas procurement, Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Spînu assured at the beginning of August.
He said that the Chisinau authorities are considering three scenarios: the reduction of Russian supplies by 35%, 50% or the complete state of natural gas from the Russian Federation.
Currently, the Republic of Moldova has 25 million cubic meters of natural gas in stock.
According to Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Spînu, a good alternative to natural gas is a fuel oil area, which could be supplied by Romania. Estimates show that the Republic of Moldova would need 216,000 tons of fuel oil for the period October 2022-April 2023.