Romania is looking at absolutely all gas supply possibilities, and Azerbaijan is certainly a source and a natural gas supply route, Energy Minister Virgil Popescu said at a government briefing on Monday.
“Azerbaijan is certainly a source and a route for the supply of natural gas. We are looking, as you have seen in Prime Minister’s statement, at the liquefied natural gas, at LNG. At the visit and the joint government meeting with the Greek Government we talked and discussed the interconnection between Greece and Bulgaria in order to make the vertical corridor operational, to be able to have access to Azerbaijani gas on the Vertical Corridor and the LNG terminals in Greece and the LNG terminals in Turkey because the diversification of supply sources is a priority for Romania and for Europe. So yes, we are absolutely looking at all the possibilities of Romania’s gas supply,” said Virgil Popescu, when asked about the talks in Azerbaijan.
He explained that through the Bosphorus, due to the Montreux Convention, vessels of a certain size to bring LNG to the port of Constanta cannot enter the Black Sea, and for this reason the interconnector between Greece and Bulgaria was discussed, to have access to terminals in Greece.
The Minister of Energy also stated that the transit of gas through the Yamal pipeline has not been stopped.
Virgil Popescu emphasized, in the context, that Romania is the second largest producer of natural gas in Europe and does not think that it is appropriate to discuss “apocalyptic” scenarios, so there is no question of not having natural gas resources.
“We have gas in storage. Obviously, spring is coming, we will reintroduce the obligation to store gas and next winter we will have maximum deposits loaded with natural gas. We have gas production. As I said, we are looking for diversification of supply routes and gas producers: LNG, Azerbaijani gas, gas from other sources, American, Qatari, from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates. So we are in contact and believe me we will not have problems with the supply of natural gas,” said Virgil Popescu.