Energy Minister Sebastian Burduja: “Romania will meet its natural gas storage target for next winter in record time”

Romania currently has 2.8 billion cubic meters of natural gas stored in underground storages, which represents over 88 percent of the total storage capacity. The European regulation stipulates that Romania had to have its deposits 65 percent full by July 1st and 85 percent by September 1st. The same normative act also stipulates that, at the beginning of the winter period (November 1), the objective of establishing natural gas stocks is 90 percent of the storage capacity.

“Daily, Romania produces approximately 25 million cubic meters of natural gas, consumes about half, and another 10-11 million cubic meters is stored. As we already have 2.8 billion cubic meters of natural gas in storage, there is still very little to reach the 90 percent target. In a few days we will meet the target set by the European Commission for November 1 in record time.

We will continue to store natural gas until we reach 100 percent of storage capacity. Most likely, as we did last year, we will also “overflow”, going over the 100 percent level. These reserves will be especially important, especially if we face a harder than usual winter.

It is good news especially in the current context of Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine, the country through which most of the Russian gas exported to Europe transits. Moreover, Kiev has announced that it will no longer extend the transit contract for Russian gas on its territory, which makes it even more important to store natural gas for the winter, both for us and for honouring possible requests for support from our brothers beyond the Prut.

In fact, we have already started working on the elaboration of the Government Decision regarding the measures regarding the level of safety and security in operation of the National Electric Power System, as well as the measures related to the realization of the safety stocks of this system in terms of fuels and the volume of water from reservoirs for the period November 1, 2024 – March 31, 2025,” said Sebastian Burduja, Minister of Energy.