Chisinau may ask Pridnestrovie to make an advance payment for gas supplies

CHISINAU, Sep 17 – PRIME. If Gazprom stops supplying gas to Moldova, Chisinau will buy it from other suppliers, in which case Pridnestrovie will have to make an advance payment, according to the Moldova-1 public TV channel, citing the words of Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilitsa.

An obligatory condition of the agreement that Chisinau signed with Gazprom in October 2021 was an audit of the Moldovagaz enterprise. Only in August, the Moldovan government signed an audit agreement with the Norwegian company Wikborg Rein Advokatfirma and the British Forensic Risk Alliance & Co. However, Deputy Prime Minister of the republic Andrey Spinu told Gazprom that the government would not have time to complete the audit of the debt before October 1, so he asked the Russian side for a delay.

“We have a pending audit of the Moldovagaz company, we wrote to Gazprom with a request to extend this period. Gazprom did not answer us clearly whether it will supply natural gas to Moldova after October 1. The risk that the Russian company completely closes the gas valve is preserved. If this happens, we will have to purchase gas on the international market or from partners at a bargain price, we must first of all pay for the consumed gas and pay in advance. Delivery of natural gas to Pridnestrovie without prepayment is impossible,” she said. Gavrilitsa.

Earlier, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko, in an interview with RIA Novosti, expressed the hope that Moldova would fulfill its obligations under the gas contract in full and on time. He stressed that the Russian side fulfills its obligations under the contract with Chisinau in full, and in general the issues of gas supplies to Moldova “are in a purely commercial plane.”

Currently, Moldova is experiencing an energy crisis due to rising energy prices. The central authorities of the republic are making attempts to provide the country with firewood, coal and fuel oil. In early August, the National Energy Regulatory Agency (ANRE) increased the gas tariff for consumers from 18.62 lei to 23 lei per cubic meter (from 96 cents to 1.2 dollars).