Romania is facing, during periods of severe frost, limitations in delivery capacity from domestic production and storage, a situation in which gas imports, especially from Hungary, become necessary to cover consumption peaks and maintain system balance, warns the Smart Energy Association.

“Romania has gas on an annual basis, but Romania may reach a situation where it cannot deliver it to consumers in Romania and the Republic of Moldova quickly enough, exactly when consumption ‘bites’ the hardest. The difference between ‘there is gas’ and ‘you have gas in the network’ is not semantic. It is the difference between comfort and crisis. When consumption jumps by 57-58 million cubic meters/day (temperatures below -12C), to which is added 6-7 million cubic meters/day of gas that transits Romania for the Republic of Moldova, we enter an area without elasticity”, claims the president of the Smart Energy Association (AEI), Dumitru Chisăliță, in a press release.

Thus, at these values, Romania enters an area where: domestic production is relatively constant and cannot increase; deposits can deliver, but have a limitation as they empty, the extraction flow decreases, and imports become the only component that can increase ”elastically”, but only up to the maximum capacity of the import points and in correlation with the import resources.

“This means that it doesn’t matter what the statistics say about ‘stocks’ and where we are in Europe. What matters is how much gas can be put into the system every day, exactly during the busy hours. And here Romania has a structural vulnerability, the hourly gas flow available, not the annual sources. With the onset of frost in Romania (January 11, 2026), Hungary (the suppliers) stopped its gas transit from Turkey to Hungary, via Romania – and started exporting gas to Romania that it had in storage, an action without which gas consumption in Romania and the Republic of Moldova could not have been maintained. The dependence on Hungary is obvious. Emotional in its formulation, commercially speculative, but it is the reality that has ensured (and the only one that can ensure) gas consumption in Romania and the Republic of Moldova at the level of demand at temperatures below -12 C. The phrase ‘we are in Hungary’s hands’ sounds hysterical. But it has a cold and precise core, operationally, Romania can reach dependent on the entry from Hungary as a balance valve”, mentions Dumitru Chisăliță.

In his opinion, if the entry from Bulgaria – Negru Vodă is already pushed to 94% of capacity, then the room for maneuver is reduced, the gas sources for South-Eastern Europe being in this direction.

“When temperatures remain negative in the coming period and consumption jumps a threshold (approximately 57-58 million cubic meters/day in Romania, to which is added 5-6 million cubic meters/day of gas transit to the Republic of Moldova), the system needs another ‘gate’ that can deliver additional flows. Hungary, at this moment, becomes the import direction that can make the difference. This is not politics. This is the infrastructure and this is the physical and commercial flow of gas. The gas storage is a tank with a tap, but like any tank, as you take out of it, it empties. This is the part that the public does not understand, and many deliberately omit it”, mentioned the president of AEI.