Romania secures emergency gas import facility with Turkey

Romania has signed its first memorandum with Turkey for bilateral cooperation in the energy sector, including an emergency natural gas import facility of up to 4 million cubic meters per day that Romania may use when needed, Energy Minister Sebastian Burduja announced, according toHotNews.

Regarding the origin of the gas, Burduja implied it’s better not to ask. The minister said in February, when asked if the gas brought from Turkey at that time was Russian: “The gas molecule has no flag. The Turks say it is Turkish gas, even if it comes from Russia.”

The Romanian partner in the memorandum signed with Turkey also remains unclear. The Romanian minister did not say which parties are signing the memorandum, so it remains unclear which company in Romania will import this gas, Economica pointed out.

Romania has a low overall dependence on gas imports, but it relies on imports during the cold season due to technical flow limitations rather than because of low reserves. This happened this year in February, when, for several days, gas was imported, even in volumes that represented over 20% of daily consumption.

Officially, Romania has stopped importing Russian gas since 2022. However, in February, when temperatures were very low, and some traders in Romania imported gas from Turkey, there were suspicions that those quantities were actually coming from Russia.

The Russian Federation exports gas to Turkey through the Turkstream pipeline.

(Photo: Spflaum/ Dreamstime)