The natural gas consumption in the first three quarters of this year fell by 6.8%. In terms of money, the saving is of almost 240 million lei, Mihail Stratan, director of the Energy Efficiency Agency, said in an interview for Radio Free Europe, quoted by IPN.

Mihail Stratan stated that there is available agricultural waste for producing about 500,000 tonnes of fuel from solid biomass. “We use only 10% of this waste, which is 50,000 tonnes. There are over 100 companies that make fuel from solid biomass in Moldova and the biomass is now widely used in our country. If we used the whole biomass available, we would replace about half of the annual natural gas imports,” he said.

The director of the Energy Efficiency Agency is convinced that the fuel made from biomass will be enough for those who want to reorient themselves or to use heating stations working based on biomass boilers. “The production is now larger than the previous years and the price of biofuel this year is lower,” he said.

Earlier, Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Vasile Bumacov said that the demand for pellets in Europe is not fully satisfied and many people in Moldova can develop businesses in this field.