Moldovagaz to make every effort to fulfill obligations under contract with Gazprom in Oct - CEO

CHISINAU. Oct 4 (Interfax) - Moldovagaz will do everything it can to fulfill its contractual obligations to Gazprom in October, Moldovagaz CEO Vadim Ceban said on Telegram on Tuesday in response to the Russian gas giant's warnings.

"JSC Moldovagaz, as before, will undertake every effort to fulfill its contractual obligations to Gazprom in October. As concerns the mechanism for paying off historical debt, I want to say that due to objective factors, coordination of this issue is beyond the competence of the company's management. Despite the lack of an audit of said debt, JSC Moldovagaz is prepared to hold talks with the enterprise's main shareholders [Gazprom at 50% and the Moldovan government at 37%] in the near future to advance specific proposals to settle contentious issues," Ceban said.

"The gas transport and distribution enterprises of the Moldovagaz group of companies are ready to work in emergency conditions strictly in line with national legislation and the decisions of the country's central bodies of authority," he said.

Gaprom said earlier that all requests from Moldova to postpone payments or change the terms of gas supplies will now be recorded as addendums to the contract. Moldovagaz has regularly violated the terms of the contract on the deadlines for making payments on gas supplied throughout 2022 and has requested changes to contractual obligations multiple times in terms of the volume of supplies, Gazprom said.

Gazprom "reserves all rights, including the right to fully cease supplies if the obligation to pay for gas by October 20, 2022 is not met, as well as the right to terminate the contract at any moment due to gross violation of the deadlines for concluding an agreement to settle JSC Moldovagaz's historical debt," it said.