Until April 1, when the contract for the supply of power with the Cuchurgan Power Plant expires, the Moldovan energy regulatory authorities are to select the company that will supply electricity during the next year. The Ministry of Economy said that owing to the regional situation in the energy sector and the crisis in Ukraine, the period for accepting bids to supply electric power was extended, IPN reports, quoting Radio Free Europe.
Calin Negura, head of the Energy Division of the Ministry of Economy, said that before choosing a bid, the electricity market operators must be sure that the supplier will fulfill the contractual obligations. “Given the energy crisis in Ukraine and the situation of 2014, when the Ukrainian side stopped the supply of electric power, the operators in this county can no longer provide guarantees. That’s why the group of observers decided to extend the deadline for bidding, so that the economic bids of the Ukrainian operators are not excluded from the competition,” he stated.
This January, the Ministry of Economy has approved the instructions concerning the annual purchase of electric power, which is a guide for staging bidding contests worked out by the Energy Community Secretariat. However, energy expert Ruslan Surugiu said one of the conditions for preselecting companies that can take part in the contest was eliminated from the instructions. This is the obligation for the operator to prove that it does not have debts for the fuel used to generate electricity.
The expert does not rule out the possibility that the omission is deliberate as the other part of the document coincides with the Energy Community Secretariat’s guide. This is beneficial to the Cuchurgan Power Plant and the intermediary firm “Energokapital” through which Moldova gets power from the Transnistrian region. “In such a situation, I do not see reasons for the Ukrainian companies to take part as they will never offer a more advantageous price than “Energokapital” because this company actually does not pay for the natural gas supplied by “Gazprom”. They only process it in Cuchurgan and pay only for the processing of this gas that they transform into electricity,” stated Ruslan Surugiu.
The Ministry of Economy only monitors the bidding contest, while the best bid will be chosen by Moldovan operators.
