Energy crisis leads to financial losses for Romania's Electrica

Electrica, one of the largest electricity distributors and suppliers in Romania, has fired its sales director and has announced that it could lose some RON 36 million (EUR 8 million) from the insolvency of the energy trader Transenergo, following the crisis affecting the Romanian energy market. Electrica has some RON 36 million to recover from Transenergo, which filed for insolvency in mid-January. Electrica expects a low recovery of that amount, said Electrica GM Dan Catalin Stancu. The Romanian energy market has entered a turbulent phase, which led to significant increases in the consumption of electricity and in the energy prices on the market. Both reached record levels. Former World Bank energy expert Corina Murafa said that many suppliers took advantage of the higher energy prices: they terminated the contracts they had with customers and, despite the penalties, they still made profits by selling the electricity to other clients. Transenergo, the fourth most important energy trader in Romania, with a business of EUR 300 million, filed for insolvency on January 17. In this context, the customers receiving energy from Transenergo, which had consumption points in the distribution network managed by Electrica Transilvania Nord, were taken over by Electrica’s supply branch Electrica Furnizare. In parallel, Electrica asked for the dismissal of its sales director Ramiro Robert Eduard Angelescu. Romania currently has eight distributions areas. Three are managed by Electrica, three by the Italian group Enel, one by the German group E.ON and, one by the Czech group CEZ. On a different note, a report of the Court of Auditors for 2015 showed that Electrica acquired goods of RON 227 million (EUR 50.4 million) that can’t be physically found in its ownership. editor@romania-insider.com