Romanian Minister of Energy Virgil Popescu said that the country will not face natural gas shortages during the coming winter season because its storages are 70 % full at this moment.
Minister Popescu assured the reserves will increase up to 2.4 billion cubic meters by 1 October, from current 2.1 billion, which is more than enough. Thus he replied to the comment of the Association for Smart Energy (AEI), who warned that Romania might face natural gas shortages this winter season.
The AEI argues that after the natural gas routes in the region have changed, Romania was left with a smaller interconnection capacity that may be insufficient in the case of prolonged periods with low temperatures.
Romania’s gas storages, irrespective of how full are they, can yield a limited daily capacity, and this limit has been repeatedly reached in the past years forcing the authorities to restrict the consumption at some non-key industrial users. This is technically possible to happen this winter again, in case the weather will be extremely cold.
