The Foreign Ministers of Romania and Hungary, respectively Peter Szijjarto and Teodor Melescanu, have signed an agreement that provides for the commitment by Bucharest to complete the investments necessary to export natural gas to Hungary within 2020.
Szijjarto said that "Hungarian companies have already ordered the full capacity of 4,4 billion cubic meters a year of the gas pipeline linking Romania to Hungary" and added that "This is the first opportunity that Hungary has had in the last decades in the purchase of large quantities of natural gas from a source other than Russia ", commenting then how this cooperation agreement represents a historical progress that will guarantee the energy security of Budapest.
The gas pipeline that connects the two main cities to the border, namely Arad (Romania) and Szeged (Hungary) has been in operation for years, but so far only small quantities of natural gas have transited through it; further investment is required to achieve the maximum designed transmission capacity. Romania has the third largest reserves of natural gas within the European Union and new fields are still undergoing exploration. With the decline in domestic gas production within the EU, the country could play an important role in the regional market.