Bucharest Fuel Stocks Enough For 60 Days, Bills Unch – Mayor

Oprescu attended Thursday a meeting with the representatives of municipally-owned heating company, Radet, water company Apa Nova, power firm Enel, power producer Electrocentrale Bucuresti, or ELCEN, and gas distributor Distrigaz, to talk on the current gas problem.

Apa Nova representatives assured there will be no water-related problems, while Distrigaz officials said the fuel supply operations are under control.

The mayor said Distrigaz is currently undergoing certain repair works, while RADET is also facing minor network damages due to out-of-date distribution pipes.

As for RADET’s debts to ELCEN, worth EUR450 million, Oprescu said they will be soon paid, so that the power producer would have funds to buy fuel oil.

Virgil Ramba, manager of heating company RADET, stated Bucharest household users will not face any heating-related problem unless distribution network damages occur, adding that such minor damages normally occur every week.

Irina Duica, ELCEN commercial manager, also gave assurance Bucharest has enough fuel stocks for thermal power supply, adding that fuel stocks are acquired throughout the winter, not all at once.

"To avoid any problem, we resumed negotiations with Petrom for fuel oil acquisitions. Tonight (Wednesday night – e.n.) we closed the negotiations of the fuel oil acquisition contract, and on January 12, we expect the first fuel oil transport (…). We currently contracted 200,000 tons of fuel oil," Duica said.

ELCEN representative also said the only problems might be certain technical malfunctions, which are usually fixed in a few hours.

Economy Ministry decided the power plants should replace gas with fuel oil, so that electricity and heating production would not be affected by the gas crisis.

Romania’s gas consumption is entirely covered by local production and stocks, and thermal plants using alternative fuel function under normal conditions, the ministry stated Thursday.

The Commission in charge with ensuring the natural gas supply met Thursday to discuss the situation given the recent gas crisis triggered by the cut of Russian gas supplies to Romania.

All Russian gas exports to Romania were halted Wednesday morning, after deliveries were cut at Mediesu Aurit gas import station at around GMT0700. Gas supplies via the other gas import station, Isaccea, were cut Tuesday morning.

Romania’s current daily gas consumption is of 58.9 million cubic meters, out of which 33 million cubic meters come from local production, while 25.9 million cubic meters are from storage facilities, the country’s Prime Minister Emil Boc said Wednesday.