The low temperatures that Romania has met in recent days have increased energy needs which in turn increased the need gas imports, said experts in gas supply segment for energynomics.ro.

“Today (Thursday – e.n) we consume over 10% of gas from imports and we are fast approaching 20%. Friday (tomorrow – e.n) are possible even 30% imports. Transgaz just bought 53,000 MWh for tomorrow (equivalent to 5 million cubic meters) of import gas on the Romanian Commodities Exchange platform with 110 lei/MWh “, sources said for energynomics.ro.

This is an inexplicable high price, especially since Tuesday Transgaz made a similar move on the Commodity Exchange, but that transaction carried a price of little more than 80 lei/MWh of gas. Because the transmission service operator cannot use the purchased commodity, it will be resold to suppliers at least with the same price, a move that translates into financial losses for them.

Line Pack section on Transgaz website, showing how much gas is in the pipeline to make the balance between supply and demand, indicated at 14:00 hours about 31.67 million cubic meters (cm). As a general rule, a reduction to below 27 million cm of means the system enters in a crisis; the system is now on alert. During this period, daily loss was between 5 and 7 million mc. The extraction from the deposits is already maximum, and we cannot take out more than 20 to 21 million cm/day.

A consumption of 60 million cm/day is possible if the cold weather persists

Energy Minister Victor Grigorescu said, on Thursday, that Romania is heading towards a daily consumption of 60 million cm of gas if temperatures remain extremely low, with 10 million cm more than in a typical winter day.

“We are moving into an area of 60 million cubic meters a day when temperatures are extremely low. We have a small import component. It varies from day to day. It’s about the operators or distributors who provide for their needs from sources which it considers most convenient”, said Victor Grigorescu. On the other hand, experts said for energynomics.ro that Romania already reached a gas consumption of 60 million cm/day three days ago.

“We need to talk about the safety of system; we refer here to gas, electricity, and coal. We are going through an extremely frosty period, a period that has not ended, and there we snowstorms too. Earlier this week we saw high-voltage or medium voltage lines torn by the wind, poles flattened. Teams intervened in all these situations. A few hundred people worked at very low temperatures to reconnect all consumers. Yesterday at lunch there was no consumer disconnected”, added the Minister of Energy.