Moldova has chances to be involved in the supply of natural gas in Central and Southeastern Europe if the project to reverse gas flows through the Trans-Balkan pipeline, which would allow gas to be pumped from the Balkans to Central and Eastern European countries through Ukraine, is implemented, IPN reports, with reference to Ukrainian sources.

Ukraine’s state gas transit operator proposed the creation of guaranteed “reverse mode” capacity along the entire route. The project was presented in a meeting with gas system operators of Bulgaria, Greece, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary, which was held in Sofia, Evropeyskaia Pravda reported.

The pipeline has already been partially operating in reverse mode with more than 0.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas pumped in 2023. An assessment conducted together with Romanian and Moldovan gas operators showed 20 million cubic meters of daily demand for gas transportation via the route to Ukraine’s underground storage, the operator said.

“The Trans-Balkan route can meet the demand of customers who plan on transporting gas from the Balkan direction to consumers in Eastern and Central Europe,” the head of Ukraine’s state gas transit operator Dmytro Lyppa was quoted as saying. He added that the proposed change would create new ways to send gas to storage in Ukraine.

IPN notes that for the first time, on a trial basis, Moldova last December imported natural gas through the Trans-Balkan pipeline in reverse mode, from south to the north.

The pipeline passes through the territory of Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey and supplied Russian gas to the Balkans before the TurkStream pipeline was launched. In 2019, a part of the infrastructure of the Trans-Balkan pipeline in Turkey and Bulgaria was included in the Balkan Stream gas pipeline.