BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 28. Romania is not affected by Russia's Gazprom decision to halt natural gas deliveries to Bulgaria and Poland, but is currently looking for alternative sources, said the country’s prime minister Nicolae Ciuca, Trend reports citing seenews.
"Romania is not affected at this moment. Gas consumption is far below the production capacity we have. You know very well that we are one of the few countries in Europe that benefits from a consistent gas resource, although not enough to meet our total need. In the winter period we import about 20 percent of the necessary natural gas. We are currently looking for alternative sources of gas supply,” he said.
Ciuca noted that Romania will be able to start exporting natural gas from the Black Sea offshore project Neptun Deep in 2027.
"Once the deep-sea gas from the Black Sea platform Neptune is extracted at the end of 2026-beginning of 2027, Romania will be able to export gas," the prime minister said, adding that the Black Sea gas can also be used to boost the local petrochemical industry.
Romania is interested to be part in the efforts aiming to implement the second phase of development of the Southern Gas Corridor and reiterates the solid proposal to include the transport infrastructure offered by the Interconnector between Romania and Bulgaria and the BRUA gas pipeline in the plan to expand the Southern Gas Corridor towards the Balkans and Central Europe.
BRUA gas pipeline, a project of strategic importance at regional level, creates in practical terms the technical and economic opportunities to transport the gas volumes from the Caspian region using the Interconnector between Romania and Hungary further to the Central European markets.
---
Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn