South-Eastern Europe has taken over the natural gas market in the Republic of Moldova (and Transnistria)

Vladimir Mitev, Mediapool, 27 August 2026

Summary

The war in Ukraine and the gas crisis of 2024–2025 led to a complete overhaul of the energy market in Moldova and Transnistria, bringing an end to the monopoly of the Russian giant Gazprom. Both before and after the market was fully liberalised in April 2026, key companies from South-Eastern Europe took charge of supply and infrastructure security in the region:

Bulgaria: Through its subsidiary Bulgargaz North SRL, ‘Bulgargaz’ has been granted a 10-year trading licence in Moldova. “Bulgartransgaz” has reduced transmission tariffs and is expanding the capacity of the Negru Voda/Kardam interconnector to facilitate the transit of liquefied natural gas (LNG) via the Vertical Corridor.

Romania: It has consolidated its role as a key partner. Energocom has secured an import agreement from the Black Sea (Neptun Deep) after 2027, whilst Romgaz Trading has obtained a licence with the aim of achieving a 30 per cent market share. Transmission is managed by Vestmoldtransgaz (under the control of Transgaz).

Hungary: Resolves the geopolitical issue in Transnistria following the halt to Russian transit through Ukraine. Through its Swiss subsidiary MET Group and intermediaries, Hungary supplies European gas to the breakaway region under a contract running until the end of 2026.

Greece: Acts as a southern gateway for American LNG via the terminals at Revithoussa and Alexandroupoli, ensuring gas transmission to Moldova through agreements between DEPA and Mediterranean Holding.

Conclusion: EU trading mechanisms and companies have completely replaced the ‘cheap Russian gas in exchange for political loyalty’ scheme, transforming Moldova’s energy sector into a competitive and fully integrated European market.

Article

Since 2022, and particularly following the acute gas crisis of 2024–2025, Moldova’s energy market has undergone a radical transformation. It has shifted from a state of near-total monopoly by the Russian giant Gazprom and its subsidiary Moldovagaz to a pluralistic and competitive environment. In this new reality, state-owned and private energy companies from various countries in South-Eastern Europe are vying for market share, operating complex trading schemes, supply natural gas to the unrecognised separatist region of Transnistria and invest in regional infrastructure, which today forms the basis of Chisinau’s energy security.

Bulgaria

Bulgaria played a decisive role in this transformation, with its position rapidly evolving from providing support in emergency situations to an officially licensed commercial and infrastructure presence. In late 2024 and early 2025, when Gazprom began drastically cutting the volumes supplied to the country, the Chief Executive of Bulgartransgaz, Vladimir Malinov publicly stated that Sofia was fully prepared to support Moldova by providing it with guaranteed access to both liquefied natural gas (LNG) and gas supplies from the state-owned trader ‘Bulgargaz’. This exceptional offer was officially formalised in the summer of 2025. The Bulgarian state-owned gas operator registered its Moldovan subsidiary – Bulgargaz North SRL – in June 2025, and just two months later, in August 2025, the Moldovan energy regulator ANRE granted it a ten-year licence to trade in natural gas.

The authoritative Moldovan financial publication Bani.md described this event as a genuine breakthrough in the gas monopoly. Bulgargaz’s entry brought the number of ANRE-licensed gas traders in the country at that time to five, placing it on a par with companies such as Proaltgaz, MET Furnizare, NPGEM and Watt Prime. In early 2026, competition in the Moldovan market intensified further with the entry of new regional players, coinciding with the deadline for full liberalisation of the gas market on 1 April 2026. From that date, all large non-domestic consumers in Moldova became legally obliged to source gas on a free-market basis, rather than through regulated supplies from the state-owned Energocom.

Bulgaria’s significance, however, extends beyond the scope of trading licences. As the operator of the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline and a key hub in the Vertical Gas Corridor, Bulgartransgaz has taken consistent steps to expand cross-border capacity at the points through which natural gas reaches Moldova. Reductions of over 11 per cent in capacity tariffs were announced at the Greece–Bulgaria and Bulgaria–Romania interconnections, as well as a major expansion of the Negru Voda/Kardam interconnector to nearly 297 million kWh/day from the 2027/2028 season. In doing so, “Bulgartransgaz” facilitates the transmission of additional volumes of LNG from reliable suppliers, including the US, to Bulgaria, Moldova and the entire region.

Romania

Romania, for its part, has reaffirmed its position as a dominant and strategic partner of Chișinău. Its presence in the Moldovan energy sector has deep historical roots, dating back to the construction of the Iași–Ungheni–Chișinău gas pipeline and the role of the Romanian OPCOM exchange in electricity imports. During the acute phase of the energy crisis of 2024–2025, the Moldovan Ministry of Energy negotiated emergency imports of 100 MW of electricity from the Romanian state-owned company Nuclearelectrica and a further 100 MW from the Brazi gas-fired power station, operated by OMV Petrom. The real qualitative leap after 2022, however, lies in the establishment of permanent links at the highest level of the gas supply chain.

In May 2025, the Moldovan state-owned company Energocom signed a landmark agreement with OMV Petrom to purchase natural gas from the Neptun Deep offshore field in the Black Sea – the largest gas resource currently under development within the EU, valued at over 4 billion euros.

Supplies from Neptun Deep are scheduled to begin immediately after the field comes on stream after 2027. A second key step was taken by Romgaz – Romania’s largest gas producer and storage operator. At the end of October 2025, the company registered its subsidiary, Romgaz Trading SRL, in Chișinău, and in January 2026 it was granted a ten-year trading licence by ANRE. According to the Romanian business publication Profit.ro, Romgaz has set itself the goal of capturing nearly 30 per cent of the Moldovan gas market, and its entry into the market coincided with record volumes of Romanian gas exports to Moldova during the winter cold snap. At the transmission network level, Vestmoldtransgaz – a Moldovan operator controlled by the Romanian state-owned giant Transgaz – facilitates the physical transit of gas purchased from Bulgarian, Hungarian and other traders.

An indication of the global scale of Romania’s strategy came on 7 August 2026, when Transgaz signed a memorandum of understanding with the US company Argent LNG to explore an equity stake in its project. The deal aims to facilitate the transit of US liquefied natural gas through Romania to Moldova, Ukraine, Hungary, Austria and Germany. In the electricity sector, Transelectrica’s new 400-kilovolt Suceava–Bălți line is strengthening two-way integration – a process whereby, even during Romania’s energy crisis this summer, electricity from Ukraine was transmitted to the Romanian market precisely via the Moldovan grid.

Hungary

Hungary’s involvement in the Moldovan market has proved to be the most complex and geopolitically sensitive, as the separatist region of Transnistria has become its main beneficiary. When the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine ceased completely on 1 January 2025 and Transnistria was left without heating or fuel in the depths of winter, Chisinau negotiated an emergency arrangement. MET Group – a company registered in Switzerland but owned by Hungarian capital – through its subsidiary MET Gas and Energy Marketing AG – began supplying gas to the Moldovan border in February 2025.

The gas was transported via the Moldovagaz and Tiraspoltransgaz networks to the breakaway region, whilst financial payments were channelled through the Dubai-based intermediary JNX General Trading, funded by a Russian loan. Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Rechan personally defended the scheme in public, confirming that the companies had been vetted for compliance with the law and that Chișinău had specifically amended its gas legislation to permit these alternative supplies.

The Hungarian government made no secret of the fact that this was a direct diplomatic manoeuvre. The then Hungarian Foreign Minister, Péter Szijjártó, announced that Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak had personally contacted him with a warning of an impending humanitarian catastrophe in Transnistria. Following urgent consultations with Chisinau and MET, Hungary agreed to act as a mediator. Tiraspol’s reaction was focused entirely on Moscow – Transnistrian leader Vadim Krasnoselsky publicly thanked Russia for its financial and practical support, disregarding the fact that the gas had been purchased on the free European market. Subsequently, the Hungarian MET Group was granted its own 10-year trading licence by ANRE, and its supply contract was extended until the end of 2026. As noted by the investigative media outlets NewsMaker and Novaya Gazeta Europe, Transnistria’s survival is now entirely dependent on European trade mechanisms and intermediaries, despite the separatists’ political rhetoric.

Greece

Meanwhile, Greece has established itself as the southern gateway for US LNG to the entire region. The Greek gas transmission operator DESFA, together with the operators in Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine, submitted a request at the end of 2025 for approval of new capacity products – Route 2 and Route 3. These are specifically designed to transport gas from the Revithoussa and Alexandroupolis terminals to the north.

DESFA’s Chief Executive, Maria Rita Gali, pointed out that this demonstrates the full capacity of the Greek infrastructure, exceeding 12 billion cubic metres per year. The foundations for this cooperation were laid back in April 2023, when Moldova’s Energocom signed a framework agreement with Greece’s DEPA, becoming, according to a press release from the authorities in Chișinău, the first company in the world to utilise virtually the entire Vertical Corridor.

A supplementary agreement from May 2024 between Moldovagaz and Mediterranean Holding secured the import of up to 1 billion cubic metres of liquefied natural gas per year for Moldova.

The change continues

All these developments point to a comprehensive reshaping of the energy landscape. The energy sector of the Republic of Moldova has broken free from its total dependence on the ‘Gazprom’ monopoly. Today, the country and its regions are supplied via a competitive, pluralistic market featuring leading players from Sofia, Bucharest, Budapest and Athens. Just as Transnistrian exports of goods have, over time, shifted towards European Union markets, so too are energy imports for the whole of Moldova now administered and managed by European companies. This trade realignment has put a definitive end to the historical lever of pressure – cheap Russian gas in exchange for political loyalty – which had defined the geopolitical situation in the Chisinau–Tiraspol–Moscow triangle for more than three decades.

Photo: (source: Pixabay, CC0)

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