The former director of Chisinau-gaz and Metalferos, businessman Arcadie Vicol, can buy the Ga-Pro-Co Săvinești chemical fertilizer plant in Romania, according to data analyzed by Profit.ro. Last week, the businessman was questioned by the Security and Intelligence Service after his supply company in Moldova, Natural Gaz DC SRL, concluded a framework contract for the supply of natural gas from the European Union to the Transnistrian region with the separatist region’s operator Tiraspoltransgaz, IPN reports.

The Russian publication Kommersant speculated that the cost of gas for the Transnistrian region, estimated at US$164 million for deliveries of 2-3 million cubic meters per day until April, will probably be compensated with funds from the state budget of the Russian Federation. This was said after the unrecognized authorities in Transnistria, which is in a serious energy crisis, announced that Russia will resume the supply of gas to the region in the form of "humanitarian aid", after interrupting it following the stopping of transit through Ukraine and refusing the alternative trans-Balkan route by invoking an alleged debt of the Republic of Moldova to Gazprom, which is not recognized by Chisinau.

Profit.ro said that the owner of the chemical plant in Săvinești, the company Ga-Pro-Co Chemicals, controlled by Ioan Niculae through a Cypriot offshore, has been under insolvency for almost seven years, the main reason being the increase in the price of natural gas, a basic raw material in the fertilizer industry.
However, Arcadie Vicol's Romanian company, Arvi Invest Ro, at a tender contest was awarded a claim of over 123 million lei of InterAgro SA on Ga-Pro-Co Chemicals SA, guaranteed with a series of movable assets that are part of the industrial assets of the Săvinești plant, according to an official document.

Arvi Invest Ro SRL was the only participant in the tender contest and won by offering the starting price of 10 million lei. Previously, the judicial administrator of Interagro had received a firm offer for the claim at the same price from Nitramonia BC of the entrepreneur from Bacău Eusebiu Guțu, according to the quoted source.

The state-owned company Romgaz, the largest producer and operator of natural gas storage in Romania, challenged the tender contest and requested the court to cancel it, the first hearing being set for February 3.

The Ga-Pro-Co Săvinești chemical fertilizer plant, where production was stopped in 2014, was initially put up for sale through direct negotiation. Subsequently, however, after an appeal by InterAgro SA, the strategy was modified in favor of the public tender contest method.

The next tender contest has a starting price of 63.8 million lei, about half of the value of the debt awarded by Arvi Invest Ro SRL to Arcadie Vicol with 10 million lei. Based on a part of the movable assets of Ga-Pro-Co Chemicals with which the debt is guaranteed, mortgages were released in favor of ANAF (National Agency for Fiscal Administration).