The traditional suppliers of gas, including Gazprom, will have to reduce the prices in order to keep the market share as the stimulation of gas extraction in the United States led to a considerable decline in gas imports on the North-American market. Currently, the gas import terminals are converted into export terminals, energy expert Victor Parlicov stated in the program “15 minutes of economic realism” produced by the Institute for Development and Social Initiative “Viitorul” in partnership with Radio Free Europe.
The U.S. will become one of the largest exporters of gas. Now the American companies orient themselves mainly to the European market. On June 8, 2017, the first consignment was exported to Poland and this tendency will be accelerated.
As regards prices, the expert said that in the medium term the natural gas prices will decline. In Europe, the price will stabilize at US$120-130 per 1,000 cubic meters. Therefore, the traditional natural gas suppliers, such as Gazprom, will have to decrease prices. This competition will lead to the evening out of prices on the main natural gas markets – North-American, Asian and European. Soon we will speak about a global market of natural gas.
“For the Republic of Moldova, it is important to develop the infrastructure needed to bring gas from another source than Gazprom so as to benefit from the favorable conjuncture on the regional market. On the other hand, the interconnection with Romania should be completed, but there is also the interconnection with Ukraine in the north of the country, which can work in the reverse regime as well. So, compressed gas could come both from the north, through Ukraine, and from the south, through Romania,” said the expert.
As to renewable energy, Parlicov said the improvement of the energy storage technologies is one of the main preoccupations of investors and technological research centers at present and the goal is to compensate the intermittency of the energy produced from renewable sources. Even if Moldova pledged to adopt a new law to promote renewable energy by the end of 2012 within the Energy Community, this was passed only in 2016 and its coming into force was postponed until 2018.
The authorities delay the coming into force of the law following the logic that the renewable energy is expensive and could put pressure on tariffs. Meanwhile, the renewable energy becomes competitive with energy generated from fossil fuels by price and the delay in putting this law into practice prevents the consumers from installing own generation sources to substitute the consumption of electrical power from the network.
