Cold weather and exports to Moldova push up gas prices on Romania’s spot market

The spot price of natural gas on the Romanian Commodity Exchange (BRM) jumped by 66% y/y to RON 250 (EUR 50) per MWh at the beginning of this year despite the low consumption during the holiday period, according to data presented by Profit.ro.

At the same time, the colder winter than last year led to a more accelerated extraction of gas from domestic storage and faster depletion of the reserves. Thus, on January 1, Romania still had 22 TWh or 65% of total capacity stored, 6 TWh below the amount on the first day of last year, of 28 TWh or 83% of total capacity. Last year, the amount of domestically stored gas dropped below 22 TWh only on the last day of January, and not from the first day, like this year.

Both higher prices and steeper depletion of reserves might be supported in the future by gas exports to Moldova, which needs supplementary energy resources after Gazprom interrupted the exports to Europe.

Romania is currently exporting record quantities of gas to the Republic of Moldova, over 50 GWh/day, equivalent to one-fifth of the current gas production, which amounts to approximately 250 GWh/day.

(Photo: Sasa Maricic/ Dreamstime)