There will be no problems with Romania's natural gas supply this winter (official)
Romania will not have problems with the supply of natural gas this winter, regardless of what the weather will be like, given that Romania's storage capacity has increased in 2023 by 100 million cubic metres, Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies Committee on the Environment and Ecological Balance Virgil Popescu told a specialist conference on Monday.
"I think there will be absolutely no problem with natural gas supply. The storage facilities are full, which should be known, and Romania's storage capacity increased last year by 100 million cubic metres. This year, it has increased by another 100 million of cubic metres. The Depogaz plus Depomures storage facilities can hold 3.27 billion cubic metres in all. You saw that we had a little over this capacity, I think it's an absolute record. I don't think they've been 100% filled so far. Of course, I have always said that it is good to have full storage facilities, but a balance must be stricken between the cost of storage, so that at the end of the extraction cycle we do not have a lot of stock or have an optimal stock, so that the gas there will not be more expensive later. But, taking into account the energy crisis, it is very good that we have them full," Popescu, a former energy minister, told the Natural Gas Forum 2023 by Financial Intelligence.
At the same time, he mentioned a 1-billion-cubic-metre agreement with Azerbaijan concluded in 2022.
"We have that buffer agreement of 1 billion cubic metres with Azerbaijan concluded last year following the visit of the President of Romania to Azerbaijan. So, in short, there will be no problems with Romania's natural gas supply this winter, regardless of how the winter turns out to be, and Depogaz's extraction capacity has increased to somewhere around 33 - 35 million cubic metres per day - we are talking about all the storage facilities."
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