Next winter will be terrible and we will see huge energy prices, factories will close and people will be left in the dark and cold because they will not be able to pay their bills unless the government takes urgent measures, said Marian Nestase, President of the Board of Directors of Alro Slatina in an interview given to Agerpres.

Currently, according to him, the energy market is in chaos and the worst is yet to come, he believes.

According to him, the bill compensation scheme is actually a “colossal fraud with public money”, because the money goes to the accounts of intermediaries between producers and consumers.

“Smart people” in energy still exist and earn billions of public money, Nestase says, so a short-term market regulation mechanism is needed.

Nastase expects several factories and industrial facilities in Romania to close this winter, with social and economic consequences. There will be people who will lose their jobs and sit in the dark and cold because they won’t have anything to pay the bills, he says.

In his opinion, energy producers should be obliged to sell part of their products directly to industrial consumers, on a special platform that exists on the stock exchange, thereby eliminating intermediaries.

A winter I have never seen before

The worst thing is now, he says, clarifying that in winter we will see something that we have not seen before.

“If we don’t take action now, we will see prices that are unsustainable, we will see bills that cannot be paid, we will see an empty state budget, without any resources, and we will see a cost of credit at which the state borrows more and more.” , – he said.

• At the European level, there is talk of closing down power generation facilities, but this has already happened in Romania. We closed, Azomureş closed, so we fall into the 15% by which we have to reduce consumption, which Minister Popescu also said (Energy Minister Virgil Popescu did not).

• But the fact that Azomureş has closed has consequences for agriculture, for the price of fertilizers, we also have a drought, so we have everything we need to have a terrible winter. If the winter will be frosty, then the matter is clear.

“If no action is taken, we will see other closed industrial facilities. From the discussions we had, colleagues from the association (the Association of Large Energy Consumers – no) are on the verge of patience, on the verge of tolerance. They are under a lot of pressure from their shareholders and customers, meaning they will not be able to sustain these costs. What else to see? Closed factories, unemployment and, of course, people who will not be able to pay their bills at all,” said the head of Alro.

• It’s like dominoes. At the point when they can no longer pay their bills, obviously the distribution will suffer and the suppliers will suffer because they will have to collect the bills. The tools available to the supplier are to cut off the electricity if the bill is not paid. And it will be the same from the side of heating.

Action needs to be taken now before we head into winter

“Measures must be taken now, in September, before we enter winter. Radical, decisive measures must be taken so that we have as much of the industry as possible. And I mean not only large consumers and the energy industry, but everyone,” he said.

It is necessary to somehow support the entire industry, including the smallest ones, because we also have suppliers. At the association level, we have thousands of local suppliers in the country, from boots and workwear to all kinds of spare parts, many of which are small and medium-sized enterprises. You choose to support SMEs, but not me? Well, if I, as his client, disappear, then he will be left without an object of work. I gave money to an SME for nothing, if I doom its customers to destruction, it is illogical.

Alro Slatina, the country’s biggest energy consumer, which has closed 60% of its electrolysis plant, has abandoned its plans to return to full capacity next year and is preparing to send 500 of its 2,500 employees into technical unemployment by the end of the year. year.