"On a scale of one to ten, I would put this year's chances ofEurope going through another gas crisis at two," says Edward Chow,energy expert with the Centre for International Strategic Studiesin Washington.
Early last week, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sent amessage to the EU telling it to give Ukraine money to pay for thegas, warning about the risks that might arise unless theauthorities in Kiev paid what they owed to Moscow. There are lessthan two months left until January 1, 2010, exactly one year fromthe moment when the Russians decided to cut the gas supply toUkraine and to many European states as a result.
What are the chances of history repeating this year and howready is Romania to cope with the cold weather on its own?
"Gazprom can no longer afford to do such a thing. They are in avery difficult position considering they have tens of billions ofdollars in loans to repay and the gas crisis this winter causedthem to lose even more billions of dollars, which they will neverget back. Theoretically and logically, this is how things shouldbe. On the other hand, the problem with Ukraine is still there. Itwas never solved. If they want to, they can start the crisis at anymoment," Chow explained ZF. He was in Romania for a conferenceorganised by Forum Invest.
According to players in the gas industry, Romania needs to playthree cards to be able to not worry about a new gas crisis: thedevelopment of interconnection routes, the upgrade and increase incapacity of storage facilities and aligning the domestic productionprice to the import price, which would allow local companies tohave more money to invest. The price for domestically produced gasis half the imported gas price.
"Interconnection and upgrades of the gas storage facilities arejust some of the long-term solutions. Now, even though we havestored gas, we cannot take out as much as we need because oftechnologies," Mariana Gheorghe, Petrom's chief executive officersays.
According to official statements on October 10, all the gasstorage facilities of Romania were supposed to store about 3billion cubic metres of gas.
"At present, all power stations that ensure the smooth runningof the national energy system have their stocks built, and thereare large additional reserves of lignite at Societatea Nationala aLignitului Oltenia (Oltenia National Lignite Company)," the EconomyMinistry recently said.
