Analysis. The country with the highest gas production in the EU, but without elasticity, Romania is facing the energy challenge during the prolonged cold.

Romania has gas supplies on an annual basis, but Romania can find itself in a situation where it cannot deliver them to consumers in Romania and the Republic of Moldova quickly enough, exactly when consumption "peaks" the most. 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 exceeds 57-58 million cubic meters per day (temperatures below -12C), to which 6 - 7 million cubic meters per day of gas transiting Romania for the Republic of Moldova is added, we enter a zone without elasticity.

At these values, Romania enters a zone where:

• internal production is relatively constant and cannot increase;

• storage can deliver, but there is a limitation as it empties, the extraction flow decreases;

• import becomes the only component that can increase "elasticly", but only up to the maximum capacity of the import points and in correlation with import resources.

This means that it does not matter what statistics say about "stocks" and what position we find ourselves in Europe. What matters is how much gas can be injected into the system each day, exactly during peak hours. And here Romania has a structural vulnerability, the available hourly gas flow, not the annual sources.

With the onset of frost in Romania (January 11, 2026), Hungary (suppliers) stopped the transit of gas from Turkey to Hungary, via Romania, and began to export to Romania gas that they held in storage, an action without which gas consumption in Romania and the Republic of Moldova could not have been maintained. Dependence on Hungary is evident. Emotionally as a 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 at Hungary's mercy" sounds hysterical. But it has a cold and exact kernel, operationally, Romania can become dependent on the entry from Hungary as a balancing valve.

If the entry from Bulgaria - Negru Vodă is already pushed to 94% of capacity, then the maneuvering space is reduced, the gas sources for Southeast Europe being in this direction.

And when temperatures remain negative in the coming period and consumption exceeds a threshold (approximately 57-58 million cubic meters per day in Romania, to which 5-6 million cubic meters per day of gas transit to the Republic of Moldova is added), 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 reservoir with a tap, but like any reservoir, as you draw from it, it empties. Here is the part that the public does not understand, and many deliberately omit:

The storage does not function like a bucket from which you can pour whenever you want, as much as you want. When the gas level in storage decreases, the extraction capacity also decreases. The paradox of the system is simple and harsh, exactly when it is colder and you need the maximum, the storage gives you less and less each day.

That is why, if the frost persists and consumption remains high, Romania can be pushed into a situation where import is no longer optional or "necessary to cover peaks", but becomes mandatory, daily and continuous.

The major risk is not that Hungary "does not want". It is that it may not be able to or that it desires (the suppliers) a very high price. Here is the truth that no one wants to say publicly. No one does energy charity in the middle of winter, in the full frost.

There are two scenarios:

A) Gas exists, but at a painful price. Any additional cubic meter per day in winter peak comes with:

• market price,

• transport costs and risk,

• emergency supply.

Romania does not balance "cheaply" by relying on gas from storage facilities, it does so through imports, the most expensive and risky solution.

B) There may be both in Bulgaria and in Hungary, countries on which energy security in these days in Romania depends, capacity constraints / internal prioritization.

Even without political hostility, the following may occur:

• network congestion,

• operational limits, • internal energy security decision.

No diplomatic conflict is needed. It is enough for each country to defend its internal consumer for problems to arise in gas supply.

In frost, Romania does not only manage the heating of the population and the district heating plants. It also manages regional gas transit flows.

When you have to simultaneously feed high internal consumption and obligations of flow to the Republic of Moldova, any small import deficit is felt immediately. And it is felt not in communication, but in pressures and in the market.

Romania is pressured in winter at peak consumption, not from lack of resources, but from lack of gas flows, and in this frost episode, marginal dependence is decisively the entry from Hungary, with a risk of prohibitive price. In just a week, we anticipate such a scenario (without predicting that it will happen so quickly): "AEI supports the need to move to a more complex form than "energy independence" - "energy autonomy": not autarky and not isolation, but the ability to cover critical consumption in peaks and in crisis from real controllable resources and infrastructures (production, networks, stocks, flexibility). Practically, "security" no longer means "I know where to buy", but "I can function if I cannot buy".