The Intelligent Energy Association, together with Energy World magazine, organizes a roundtable entitled “The formation of the natural gas market in Romania” on April 19, at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Bucharest.

Guest Speaker Aura Săbăduș – Editor, Turkish Energy Hub Daily

Aura Săbăduş is a senior reporter, specializing in the gas markets in Romania, Turkey and Ukraine at the ICIS press agency in London. Aura holds Ph.D. studies at King’s College London on liberalization of the gas market in Turkey and is an associate researcher at the European Center for Energy and Resource Security (EUCERS) in London. Aura has published articles on energy in academic journals and in the press in Romania, UK, Turkey, USA.

The natural gas business must have as its primary strategic goal the sale and purchase of natural gas and all the other derived objectives to support this main objective. Until 2000, Romania had a gas industry, not a competitive gas market, with its focus placed on the importance of natural gas delivery to the consumer, with a reduced emphasis on the quality of the gas delivery and contracting process. The characteristic of this period consisted in the monopoly of the state in gas supply, corroborated with its obligation to ensure the continuous supply of gas. For the consumer, the sole obligation, at most, was paying for gas (and even this was not always fully assumed by the consumer, as the was this ability to regulate arrears by means of centralized economy). This habit remained after 2000, because of the leaders of the entities whose aim was precisely to liberalize the gas market, often resorting to the violation or “maltreatment” of the law in order to hide the helplessness or indolence of consumers or operators.

Separation of production, transport, storage, distribution and supply activities has led not only to a legal separation, but also to a deep individualization of the various operators, leading to blocking some actions, mutual accusations, misinformation, lack of information / collaboration, non-harmonization of activities etc., all of which strongly affect gas sales and purchases under normal conditions, but especially under abnormal conditions (imbalances between supply and demand, crisis situations). It is therefore a matter of priority to ensure a real model of the functioning of the gas market.

The event is part of the “Stop and start all over again the Gas Market in 10 Steps” country project, launched by the Intelligent Energy Association. At the symposiums dedicated to the experts of the oil and natural gas industry, the drafts of the normative acts in Romania proposed by the Association will be presented and debated.

The Intelligent Energy Association launched a civic initiative to rewrite the Natural Gas Network Code (February 15th)

Proposed Program of Conferences in 2018

May 21st (with Energy Industry Review)
Re-designing the design-execution-exploitation of gas sector objectives as for stimulating transactions

September 26th (with energynomics.ro)
Decrease / increase in price through restructuring of the natural gas sector

October 11th (with Energy Policy Group – EPG)
Reducing energy poverty in Romania