The Electrica Group has taken over the electricity supply contract for Liberty Galați, announced Electrica CEO Alexandru Chiriță.
“We made a responsible decision. It was not easy. There are times when you no longer look for easy. You look for the right thing. You look to build. Energy is not a service. It is the infrastructure without which there is no industry, no functional communities and no sovereignty. This is the mission that Electrica assumes: to be where Romanians and Romania need it, not just where it is comfortable. We want this contract to be the first step towards a long-term partnership and we will work together to ensure continuity and a stable transition,” Alexandru Chiriță wrote on a social network.
“In Galați, in recent days, Liberty, the largest steel mill in Romania, an integrated primary steel producer in southeastern Europe, was once again on the verge of disconnection from the power grid. When you hear “disconnection”, you think of a commercial dispute. Something that is resolved with a piece of paper. But in Galați, disconnection means something else. It means that the only blast furnace that can still produce steel for the Cugir ammunition and the Brașov armor becomes scrap metal… Romania cannot afford to lose this industrial capacity. Not now, when Europe is rearming. Not now, when the reconstruction of Ukraine will require millions of tons of steel from our border. Not now, when European steel production can be a real competitive advantage for the first time in decades. Liberty Galați is a target of strategic importance. But a strategic objective without energy is just paper”, added the Electrica CEO.
The Galați Court recently approved the amendment to the Restructuring Plan proposed for the Liberty Galați Steel Plant by the concordat administrators Euro Insol and CITR. The court decision creates the necessary legal framework for organizing a transparent international auction for the sale of the plant’s functional assets, scheduled for March 12. The plant is in judicial reorganization proceedings, and the amendment to the plan has as its main objective the attraction of a strategic investor, capable of modernizing the industrial unit and relaunching steel production, in a sector considered essential for the national economy.
