To accuse the market and liberalization of the current situation in energy and gas betrays an acute lack of logic and economic education, says economic analyst Cristian Păun.
“The incompetence and ignorance of politicians are to blame for the current situation in energy and gas, not liberalization or the market,” says Păun.

Romania today has two gas producers: a private producer that has a declining production from year to year, motivating the depletion and aging of its reserves in operation – OMV Petrom (the decrease is substantial and obvious in recent years, from about 5-6 billion cubic meters, to only 3.7 billion cubic meters in 2021) and a state producer that has kept its production constant throughout this period, without any sign that it will increase it in this context of crisis (it remained at about 5-6 billion cubic meters per year). The state operator has a production of about 1.3 billion cubic meters per year higher than the private operator (today, about 60% of production is at Romgaz and 40% is at OMV Petrom, others do not matter).

“We add, for context, the issue of Black Sea gas, in which we have another player who will enter the market this year (the smallest of them) with about 10% of total production, and the two players above which still stutters badly when it comes to offshore production.

Conclusion 1: Such a “market” cannot be anything but dysfunctional from start. Competition and market mechanisms are mimicked by a player who dictates everything in the market. And which did not make any gesture that it would like to cut the sale and delivery of gas price on the domestic market,” added the analyst, quoted by Republica.ro.

Energy players are also few and, by and large, also state-owned, not private. They recently closed two gas-fired power generation facilities, with no funds for investment, and have been systematically stripped of their accumulated profits year after year. The investment from Iernut is also unfinished, it also had to produce energy on gas. The closure of coal-fired energy production, for environmental reasons, also left us without about a third of production.

“Conclusion 2: The energy market, also dominated by state players, has been the sure victim of decisions as bad by state-owned companies on the market as the gas market (which is largely correlated with this). Such a market cannot function normally, with a small number of producers, all state-owned and very diverse in terms of production costs. Added to all this: a blockhead and incompetent regulator which looks at the gas and energy market and doesn’t understand much; a gas exporter (Russia) that cannot produce as much gas as required at European level. More recently, it is also belligerent and rattles its weapons on the border with Ukraine, putting even more straws on fire; an extremely weak minister, in a government completely overwhelmed by the problem and which does not have many correct solutions at its disposal; an Europe that wants to be greener than it should be, given that its carbon footprint is very small and disproportionately divided between member states,” concluded Crtistian Păun.