Ministry of Industry was not informed about ceasing power exports by Russia

The Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure states that it was not informed about Russia interrupting power supplies to Moldova. The declaration belongs to the Minister’s counselor, Vladimir Cravenco. The attempts of the Info-Prim reporter to find out any information from the State Enterprise “Moldelectrica” did not give any results. On the other hand, Union Fenosa Group promised to comment upon this fact in short time. According to the Ukrainian press, power exports from Russia were ceased, at the end of May when the contract between “Ukrintenergo” and “Inter RAO EES” expired. “In order to continue the collaboration, the sides must agree upon the transit prices”, declared the president of “Ukrinterenergo”, Piotr Omelianovski. But the prices will be set only after the financial plan for 2006 of the Ukrainian power networks “Ukrenergo” will be approved. In 2005, “Ukrinterenergo” performed a power transit for the Republic of Moldova amounting to 0.8 milliard kWh. According to the data of the National Agency for Power Regulation, in the first month of 2006, the consume of power in Moldova constituted 816 million kWh, and that represents an increase of 16.1% comparing to the similar period of the last year, being the most significant increase of the last few years. Of the total consumed power in 2005, about 45.2%, or 1 billion 567.5 million kWh were purchased from the Power Plant from Cuciurgan, and 921.7 kWh (26%) from Ukrainian imports.