Romania benefits from imported gas nowadays and has reached a level of gas deposits loading of 47%, it is shown in an analysis of the Intelligent Energy Association (AEI).
“Romania is lucky that the gas supply companies from Hungary import gas from the Russian Federation through the South Stream pipeline and discharge some of the gas that transit Romania, in Romania as well. Romania benefits these days from imported gas and has reached a level of deposit loading of 47% out of luck. If Hungary had been on Russia’s blacklist, or if it did not have to transit Romania, Romania would probably not benefit from the 2-3 million cubic meters/ day of natural gas, which would have made the Romanian gas deposits, probably, to be only at a level of 35-38%, and at the end of the storage cycle, we would probably have reached only a level of 65-70%,” says Dumitru Chisăliță, the president of AEI.
“In the event that luck will be on Romania’s side from now on, respectively the import made by other companies from Russia and resold in Romania will work until spring and we will have the luck of a light winter, Romania could pass easily over the winter, probably except for two or three episodes in which cooler periods would impose certain restrictions,” he says.
“If Romania is abandoned by the luck that has been with us for 10 years, winter by winter, and there will be no more gas flow from Russia to Romania, or foreign companies that import gas in Romania today, will choose not to sell this gas in Romania, or we do not find any other gas, all set on a hard winter, things will be critical for the period December 2022 – March 2023, with possible extreme episodes in February 2023 (statistically February is the month with the lowest temperatures and the month in which the quantities of gas in the deposits are reduced),” added the analyst.
“Thus, it is necessary to detail the Plans for emergency situations on the natural gas market, which would allow the rationalization of gas for economic consumers, depending on the value of the deficit. A 14-day cold wave with temperatures below -15 C in the latter part of winter would require rationing for almost all consumers except household and essential consumers. Practically, almost all of Romania should be closed. Even if theoretically household consumers will not be affected, the reality may disprove this requirement. We must keep in mind that in situations of extreme cold, consumers that are closer to the source consume a lot and make the gas no longer reach the minimum quantity and operating pressure needed by appliances to consumers at the ends of the transmission or distribution system, they remain effectively without gas. Even if the scenario of a difficult future winter is improbable, this scenario should still be taken into account.”
What I don’t understand his the fact that Romania is self sufficient from about 90% of the gas production.
Why we need to import gas from outside?
Does the Romanian gas is more expansive than the Russian one ?
There is high seasonality influencing the Romanian gas market – the demand in winter is times much bigger than in summer, thus the imports needed in the winter are over 30% of the demand, and even more when very cold. Part of the problem is the insufficient capacity for extraction from gas deposits. Near the end of the winter, when the gas deposits are far from full, the extraction capacity decreases significantly, which means we have our stored gas, but we cannot use it when most needed.