Electrocentrale Bucharest (ELCEN) is in a crisis situation and from October could have problems with the purchase of natural gas, if the Capital City Hall does not find a quick solution to pay the debts of Termoenergetica, of approximately one billion lei, told Agerpres the Minister of Energy, Sebastian Burduja.

“Termoenergetica’s debts to ELCEN are of approximately one billion lei. I wrote an address to Mayor General Nicuşor Dan for weeks and pointed out this problem, because there are two aspects: ELCEN has come out of insolvency and if it will have problems, practically the creditors can ask for bankruptcy directly, he can no longer enter again insolvent, this is the law, and on the other hand, if at this moment, in the summer, they can afford to honor the contracts, because still the amount of gas they use is reduced, when we talk about October 1st and they will should have a new gas supply contract, we are talking about much larger amounts and they will not have these amounts if the General City Hall does not find a quick solution to pay the amounts from Termoenergetica to ELCEN,” said Sebastian Burduja.

He specified that there will be no problems with gas in the winter, because Romania currently registers a storage level of 77%, i.e. almost a billion normal cubic meters more than a year ago, noting that he wishes that Romanians “shouldn’t shiver either from the cold or from the fear of bills”.

“We will have gas in the winter. I wish that Romanians don’t shiver either from the cold or from the fear of bills. We are with a record percentage, I can tell you, of 77%, these are today’s data, and compared to the similar period of last year, we are approaching the value of one billion normal cubic meters more than Romania stored a year ago. It’s true, the decrease in consumption also helped us, because as industry decreased, industrial activity decreased, and then less gas was consumed. So, on September 1st, we must be over 90% filled, this is the target that Romania has before the European Commission. We are convinced that we will exceed this target. We have also exceeded our July 1st target, so we will be approaching maximum storage capacity as we approach the end of this injection cycle. On October 1, the extraction cycle from the deposits begins and, in the context of a normal winter, we will have absolutely no problem,” added the Minister of Energy.

“If the winter will be very hard, we have the option to activate a contract that Romgaz has with Azerbaijan, where we have a reserve of one billion normal cubic meters and we can call on these gases to reach Romania and support a possible deficit in this area.”