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ANRE: It is imperative that Romania decides what to do with the Black Sea gas
Romania needs to decide urgently if it wants to use the Black Sea gas in the domestic industry or just wants to obtain income from the transit of the natural gas on its territory, the National Regulatory Authority for Energy (ANRE) officials said on Wednesday, romaniajournal.ro informs..
“It is crucial to know how Romania’s economy will look like in 2030 or 2050 and a possible energy strategy relying on this economic vision is needed. Because it’s one thing to have a few million consumers – of electricity, gas, heat – and to shape an energy system on household consumption, and it’s another thing to have a service-based economy and again is another thing if you think you’d want an industry that consumes significant amounts of energy,” said Zoltan Nagy-Bege, ANRE Vice-president, digi24.ro informs.
He added that Romania will have much to gain if the decision to extract gas from the Black Sea is made.
“It is obvious that these projects come with a plus, whether we talk about the Black Sea gas extraction or the BRHA pipeline. We should decide what we should do with this gas surplus. We just want them to transit Romania to the west or south, or we would like to consume the gas in Romania. Obviously, the transit of gas brings added value to Romania, but if the gas is consumed by the industry and something is produced, the added value is incomparably higher than from the simple transit services,” Nagy-Bege said.
According to him, a decision on this should be urgently made, as the Black Sea gas production is expected to start in 2020-2021.
He also said that Romania should have its own vision and development strategy, not just to decide according to the decisions made by the European Commission or by other foreign institutions.
Earlier in the same conference, Doru Vi?an, State Secretary with the Ministry of Energy, said Romania could use some of the Black Sea gas to produce electricity in a new plant in Deva, an area where the future BRHA pipeline will pass through.
He assured that the Ministry of Energy will finalize Romania’s new energy strategy by the end of this year.