OREANDA-NEWS. December 30, 2013. This was announced by Vice-premier, Minister of Economy of Moldova Valeriu Lazar at a sitting of the Cabinet when he commented on the prolongation of gas supply and transit contracts for another year.

According to him, it is still unknown if the reduction in the gas price for Moldova entails the reduction in gas tariffs for final users, because a lot will depend on an national currency exchange rate. If there are no serious swings in it, gas prices for final users at least will not go up, which is very important, Valeriu Lazar has said.

If an MDL exchange rate swings a lot, the National Energy Regulatory Agency will revise the gas prices. According to findings of Gazprom, the contract price for Russian gas for Moldova reduced \\$12.46 to USD 364,52 per 1,000 cu m in Q3 2013 against Q2. It was USD 377.74 per 1,000 cu m in Q1 and USD 376.98 per 1,000 in Q2 2013. In 2012, an average annual purchasing price for Russian gas for Moldova increased 16.1% to USD 393.97 per 1,000 cu m, Moldovagas reported earlier. Seeing the real combustion value, it made up USD 388.31 million in Q1 2012, USD 398.01 million in Q2, USD 398.15 million in Q3, 2012 and USD 399.58 million in Q4.

The price for gas for Moldova is calculated on a formula that includes such variable as a price Gazprom has sold gas to non-CIS states for the last 9 months of a year preceding the year of the supply. The price is fixed every quarter as of January, 1, April, 1, July, 1 and October 1. It depends on prices for gas oil and black oil fixed by Platt’s Oilgram Price Report in European monthly averages Cargoes FOB Med Basis Italy and presents the arithmetical mean value between highest and lowest quotations.

Till 2011, the formula included a decreasing coefficient for Moldova to switch over to European prices gradually. Since 2011, Moldova has bought Russian gas at European prices.