The former director of the National Agency for Energy Regulation (NAER) Victor Parlicov said the state of alert in the energy sector has existed since the beginning of October, but was announced officially now given that a legal reason is needed for starting to use crude oil from the state reserves. According to representatives of extraparliamentary parries, the government makes mistakes because they refuse to address the political aspects of the energy crisis in the discussions with Gazprom, IPN reports.
According to energy expert Victor Parlicov, they have known about the shortage of natural gas in the Republic of Moldova since the start of October and the process of preparing the crude oil for being burned also started them. A legal reason was needed to start to use the crude oil and a state of alert was therefore declared.
“Moldovagaz informed about the shortage of gas immediately after the power stations of Moldelectrica switched over to crude oil. This was done in order to avoid an impact on other categories of consumers and not to disconnect household users. The crude oil forms part of the strategic state reserves and the head of Moldelectrică cannot start to burn crude oil whenever he wants,” former NAER director Victor Parlicov stated in the talk show “Fourth Power” on N4 channel.
At the same time, representatives of extraparliamentary parties accuse the country’s administration of starting the negotiations with Gazprom too late. Furthermore, they said the government ignores the political aspects in the discussions with Russia and this is a mistake.
“Hungary and Serbia approached this issue in the most serious way in summer and obtained long-term contracts, avoiding this way the turmoil on the stock exchange and other related developments. We started to be preoccupied with this subject in October. Instead of the senior administration becoming involved, they delegated this deputy prime minister for infrastructure who is not accepted anywhere. The administration had a very important chance of discussing this subject and of meeting with the President of Russia. Instead of going to the CIS Meeting, Maia Sandu sent Gavrilița. I assure you that Gavrilița will not be accepted for talks or communication,” said the representative of the Civic Congress Party Iurie Muntean.
The Commission for Exceptional Situations two days ago decided that crude oil will start to be used from the state reserves on October 15 to produce electricity and heat and that compensatory measures will be agreed for residential, industrial and commercial gas users so as to cushion them from higher gas prices. It also proposed considering solutions for economizing on natural gas and electricity.
