The European Commission accepted, on Friday 6 March, commitments offered by Transgaz to facilitate exports of natural gas from Romania.
The company will make available to the market significant export capacities of Romanian natural gas to Hungary and Bulgaria.
Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice President in charge of Competition Policy, believes that the measures announced by Transgaz will promote the free flow of gas at competitive prices in South Eastern Europe.
In June 2017, the Commission announced the opening of an investigation into whether Transgaz had restricted exports of natural gas from Romania.
The definitive commitments made by Transgaz will allow market players to access significant volumes of export capacity via interconnection points between Romania and neighbouring Member States.
Transgaz is committed: - to make available a minimum export capacity of 1.75 billion cubic metres per year at the interconnection point between Romania and Hungary (capacity equivalent to one sixth of Hungary's annual gas consumption) ; - to make available export capacity of 3.7 billion cubic metres per year at two interconnection points between Romania and Bulgaria (this covers more than half of the annual gas consumption of Bulgaria and Greece); - to ensure that its tariff proposals to the Romanian national energy regulator (ANRE) will not discriminate between export and domestic tariffs; - to refrain from using any other means of hindering exports.
The final commitments provide for significant additional capacity compared to the initial commitments, thanks to the capacity of the Romanian section of the first phase of the Bulgaria-Romania-Hungary-Austria gas pipeline project. Transgaz's participation in this project will be subject to legally binding deadlines. The commitments will remain in force until 31 December 2026. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)