The Moldovan authorities will oblige Energocom to purchase certain volumes of natural gas and store it in underground storage facilities for emergency use.

This is provided for by a draft government decree on imposing the obligation to provide a public service to ensure the security of supplies and storage of natural gas in an emergency. The document was developed by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Development and submitted for public consultations. The goal of the project is to create a legal mechanism to improve the security of gas supply in Moldova. It is planned that through this mechanism, Energocom will purchase natural gas and store it in underground storage facilities (depending on the available storage capacity and costs of storage services), and Moldovagaz, which has an obligation to provide a public emergency supply service of natural gas, will buy stored natural gas in accordance with the framework of sales contract. The sale of natural gas will be carried out in the event of termination or restriction of supplies to the market of natural gas under existing contracts by the supplier of last resort; supply to consumers of additional volumes of gas in excess of the existing contracts concluded by guaranteeing suppliers; if the price of natural gas stored and supplied by Energocom is below the current natural gas price set by the guaranteeing suppliers. Energocom is expected to raise a loan from the EBRD and/or other international financial institutions to finance the purchase and/or storage of natural gas.

Source: infomarket.md