OREANDA-NEWS. April 20, 2009. Russian natural gas’s price for Moldova for the second quarter of 2009 will total about US260-270 for one thousand cubic meters.

This was announced on Thursday by the first vice-premier Igor Dodon after the meeting of the government. He noted that the exact price of the gas for Moldova has not been named by "Gazprom", but it will be known in the coming days, when the dynamics of prices of the mineral oil products over the past nine months will be collected and analyzed.

In his view, the price of the gas to Moldova in III and IV quarter of 2009 will be even lower. Earlier, the Chairman of the Moldovan-Russian joint-stock company "Moldovagaz” Alexander Gusev said that the price of the gas to Moldova in the II quarter of 2009 will be US 250 for 1 thousand cubic meters.

The price of the gas to Moldova in I quarter of 2009 amounted to US 332.6 per 1 thousand cubic meters. Moldovan authorities have announced that they are expecting that the price of the gas from II quarter of 2009 will decline due to the decrease in prices for mineral oil products at the world markets, in particular, the quotations in the world prices for gasoline and black oil, which directly affect the price of the natural gas imported from Russia.

Under the contract between Moldovagaz and Gazprom companies, the purchasing price of the natural gas for Moldova is fixed quarterly based on the average price of gas supplied to European states taking into account the decreasing co-efficient for Moldova that amounts to 0.8 in 2009.

The average purchasing price of the gas for Moldova in 2008 totaled US 232.37 for one thousand cubic meters, up 34.4% against the indicator of the year of 2007.