Authors:
Sergiu Tofilat
Eugen Muravschi
This material was produced with the financial support of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The opinions expressed in the study belong exclusively to the authors; they cannot be interpreted in any way as the opinion or position of the National Endowment for Democracy.
Key findings
The procurement of natural gas in recent years has been carried out with multiple irregularities: excessive quantities acquired at high prices, delayed procurements, ignoring the market rules. These mistakes led to higher gas bills paid by consumers.
For the 2024-2025 winter season, the procurement of gas started more than two months late, missing the advantageous prices in May-July 2024.
Two attempts were made to procure the entire volume of gas for the winter season (630 million m3) in a single day, contrary to the principles of risk diversification. This kind of transaction distorts the gas market: such large volumes are not available on the regional market for a single transaction.
Tender terms were inconsistent with gas market practices, restricting the competition and driving up acquisition costs. The procurement orders included restrictive provisions, such as the right to change volumes by ±20% or the performance guarantee of 25% of the cost of gas.
The Parliament and the Government have dealt with the problem superficially: no analysis of the problems has been carried out and the legal framework has not been modified. Instead, the authorities passed the blame on to other people, manipulating public opinion.
As a result, the distribution operators subordinated to Moldovagaz repeated the same errors in 2025, when purchasing gas for technological consumption.
Energocom did better in procuring gas when the political factor was not involved in the decision-making process. However, receiving bids through the corporate mailbox involves certain communication security risks, which could affect the fairness and transparency of the bidding proceedings.
The problems can be overcome by amending the legislation in accordance with the European rules: (1) establishing clear provisions, based on which the operators should develop the annual gas procurement strategy; (2) the introduction of mandatory minimum requirements regarding the rules for organizing tenders and defining auctioned products; (3) establishing the minimum cybersecurity requirements for the auctions organized through the corporate mailbox of Energocom.