Moldova to promote export of US LNG
The main idea is to promote exports of American liquefied natural gas (LNG), including the prospect of a complete ban on Russian gas supplies to the EU.
Other signatories include Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine, Croatia, Lithuania, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This was reported by the Bulgarian Ministry of Energy. “The document emphasises the need to optimise natural gas markets to ensure their economic efficiency and sustainability, while utilising and expanding existing infrastructure and removing non-market barriers to competitive prices, including by repealing regulations that hinder gas imports, the construction of new gas infrastructure and ensuring the long-term stability of natural gas trade,” the Sofia ministry said in a statement.
The joint declaration was signed during the Transatlantic Summit on Gas Security. Moldova was represented at the summit by Energy Minister Dorin Jungiatu.
The US is ‘tying’ Europe to its LNG
The event, which was supported by the US Council on National Energy Security, also included a ministerial meeting on the Vertical Corridor.
The Vertical Corridor concept has been promoted since 2016 as a strategic initiative to reduce dependence on Russian gas and simplify the supply of American LNG (liquefied natural gas). Moreover, supplies not only from the US itself, but also produced by American companies in other regions of the world: North Africa, the Cyprus shelf, the Leviathan and Tamar fields (in Israel), etc.
The members of the initiative are gas transmission system operators from Greece, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine. In order to ensure uninterrupted natural gas supplies to their markets and to increase market liquidity by simplifying alternative supply routes, they have joined forces to make the necessary investments to remove physical constraints on the Vertical Corridor route, thereby increasing the capacity of their systems, particularly in the south-north direction.
However, this initiative has been struggling so far. Traders’ interest in gas supplies from Greece to Ukraine has been virtually non-existent for several months.
Has the Vertical Corridor started working?
The situation changed dramatically this week. As reported to Logos Press by the Moldovan Ministry of Energy, at the auction for reserving monthly capacity in the Vertical Corridor gas transmission network, Route 1, a record capacity of 25,500 MWh/day/month, equivalent to 2.4 million m3/day, was reserved, starting in March 2026.
Route 1, which is part of the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline in physical reverse mode, is designed to transport natural gas from LNG terminals in Greece, including liquefied natural gas from the United States, to underground storage facilities in Ukraine.
‘Thanks to the implementation of the project, the Vertical Corridor will make it possible to transport American LNG produced by American companies (Exxon, Chevron, etc.), including from existing LNG terminals in Greece (Revithoussa, Alexandroupolis), as well as from other terminals currently in the project implementation stage (e.g., Diorigas),’ the explanatory notes to the declaration say.
The US has long been putting pressure on Europe to organise the transit of liquefied natural gas (LNG) produced in the US from Greece to Ukraine via Bulgaria, Romania and the Republic of Moldova.
This is now materialising in the European gas market’s increasing dependence on American LNG. This includes South-Eastern Europe, which includes Moldova.
