After the Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Development announced that Moldova struck a deal with Gazprom in St. Petersburg, a number of politicians and experts posted comments on Facebook, expressing their bewilderment at the fact that the Moldovan chief negotiator didn’t announce the agreed price of gas, warning about the lack of transparency on the part of the government, IPN reports.
“We have a Contract on gas. The price will be announced in five years so as not to affect the talks on the future contract”... This seems to be the position of the “transparent” government,” wrote ex-Premier Ion Chicu.
Ex-Deputy Speaker Alexandr Slusari wrote that after yesterday’s euphoria, the Russian press today reported that price of gas for winter under the contract signed by Moldovagaz and Gazprom will be not US$280 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas, as they rumored, but US$550-600. “I think we must demand that the contract with Gazprom is punished so as to see the reason why it was signed for a five-year period when we have the Iasi-Chisinau gas pipeline, to see the exact price formula, if Moldovagaz wasn’t obliged to purchase a particular volume of gas a year or will face penalties, etc.”
For his part, foreign policy expert Dionis Cenușa suggests waiting for details about the agreed price formula. He said the signing of the contract is good news as the Government of Moldova and Russia managed to avoid negative scenarios that could have led to a halt in gas supplies. Minister Spînu said the price formula is the one proposed by the Moldovan side, but the Russian press reported that the price formula could be based on the price of oil and the price of natural gas for the last nine months equally. If the price is reviewed quarterly, the price of the gas bought by Moldova cannot be based on the old formula, related to the price of oil only.
Dionis Cenușa noted the motivation behind Russia’s decision to sign the agreement is evident. “On the one hand, Chisinau accepted to pay the debts in installments (the recognition of debts was a matter of principle for the Russian side), while the price formula (if it’s the one mentioned above) is not at all bad for the Russia side. On the other hand, an audit will be conducted at Moldovagaz. At the same time, the same price formula is not fata for Moldova as it does not go to the market price of gas (that was high even before the crunch). Another serious reason is the absence of any intention to harm its interests in the Transnistrian region, which would have experienced an energy crisis with serious repercussions and ramifications,” noted Cenușa.
In the evening of October 29, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Development posted on Facebook that the negotiations between the Moldovan delegation and Gazrom ended. The parties reached an agreement in principle on the price formula, on an audit to be conducted in order to estimate the debt owed by Moldovagaz to Gazprom and on the need for further negotiations to establish a repayment schedule. The previous contract between Moldova-Gaz and Gazprom will be extended by five years using a price formula proposed by the Moldovan party, with supplies to start under the new contract on November 1. In October Moldova received gas under a one-month extension of the contract with Gazprom, albeit in lower than expected amounts. The difference was purchased during this period on the spot market, through the state company Energocom, at market prices.
