Romanian state-controlled natural gas company Romgaz seeks contractors to boost the extraction capacity at the country’s largest natural gas storage facility (Bilciulesti) under a project estimated at RON 600mn (EUR 120mn) financed under the Connecting Europe Facility, Economica.net reported. 

An outcome of the project would be the reduction of the country’s dependence on gas imports during the winter. Romania still needs natural gas from import in the cold winter days when the consumption exceeds production plus the extraction capacity of its gas storage facilities. Other benefits of the project are increasing the flexibility of Romania’s natural gas infrastructure, the capacity to provide balancing services, and better compliance with Regulation EU1938/2017 (concerning measures to safeguard the security of gas supply).

According to the specifications of the project, the plan is to increase the daily extraction capacity from the Bilciurești storage facility by 40%, up to 20mn cubic meters per day, but also to "increase the storage capacity by 108mn cubic meters/cycle, obtaining a capacity of total storage of 1.42bn cubic meters/cycle".

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iulian@romania-insider.com