Gas consumption has decreased in Romania for this year, we are talking about a little more than 10% decrease in our distribution area, said Cristian Secoșan, general manager of Delgaz Grid, at the Central European Gas Congress. According to him, 10% means less revenue, that is, less money, which should go into operation, maintenance, modernization of the network.

“We, as a gas distributor, are at the end of the chain and I was thinking that this part of the activity is not as visible, but I think it is at least as important as all the other links in the chain.

I can tell you that the part of the networks that reach people’s homes is in a rather complicated situation, and the possible sources of funding are not actually available and we have no sources of funding. The only way we finance ourselves is from the rate calculated by ANRE and given to us by our customers, which is getting lower and lower because we are trying to protect the population. There is also that social role that maybe we all have to assume, but we really need tariffs. We really need an understanding in this direction, because otherwise the gas will no longer reach people’s homes,” said Cristian Secoșan, quoted by Financialintelligence.

“There are many problems in the gas distribution network. And, I repeat, our only source of investment is related to the money we get from the tariff and as long as the tariff is kept down it is very complicated to make investments.

I’m not talking about network extensions anymore. Obviously we do them, but the network extensions have to be economically justified, because otherwise I have no way to do them, and the tariff increases a lot when I load some assets that actually produce almost nothing.

And the second element – the consumption has decreased a lot. We have as much gas as we want, but we have some significant drops in consumption. For this year, a little more than 10% is down in our distribution area, more on residential, due to factors like weather, economy, etc.

But 10% means less revenue, that is, less money which should go into operation, maintenance, modernization of the network. We go into people’s homes and we have to make sure there are no dangers. We have to be very careful how we handle the situation without money. It’s very complicated,” added the director of Delgaz Grid.