Gazprom has announced that Moldovagaz paid the bills for the natural gas delivered in November so it decided “not to reduce the volume of natural gas transported to the Republic of Moldova”, reported Deschide.md quoting a tweet from the Russian gas company.

However, this means that Gazprom will keep its deliveries to Moldova in December at under half of the contracted amount — just like it did in November.

"Company Moldovagaz has eliminated the irregularities in payments to Gazprom for the current supplies of Russian gas in November. Gazprom received the money for gas stuck on the territory of Ukraine meant for consumers in Moldova," the company said according to Prime news agency.

"In this context, a decision was made not to reduce gas supply to the Sudzha gas metering station for transit to Moldova."

Gzprom also warned Moldova to pay its future gas bills in time, or else the gas deliveries will be terminated.

“Due to Moldova’s frequent payment breaches,” Gazprom said it “reserves the right to cut or stop exports in case of further problems”.

It’s a surprising statement, given that the party that is breaching the contract is Gazprom.

Gazprom previously announced its deliveries will be 56% of the contractual terms in December, citing technical problems in Ukraine.

Under the contract signed in 2021, Gazprom is supposed to deliver 189mn cubic metres of gas to Moldova proper in December and 217mn cubic metres to Transnistria — meaning 406mn cubic metres, or 13.5mn cubic metres per day, in total. However, it has been delivering less than agreed, namely 5.7mn cubic meters per day since October.

Moldova’s state energy trader announced that it already owns a buffer in excess of 200mn cubic meters, stored mainly in Ukraine. This should cover the country’s consumption for nearly two months — including the consumption in Moldova proper only, though, and not the separatist Transnistria region.