Last year, the BURSA newspaper was the first to disclose the cases of the energy producers (the complexes of Craiova, Turceni and Rovinari) which skirted the law by selling energy to consumers directly instead of via auctions, as they are required to do by an order of the Minister of the Economy. At the time, the officials of the producers said that the contracts were "confidential".

This year, producers continued to sell energy through secret contracts, and another member joined the "club". In the first six months of 2011, "Nuclearelectrica" - the only producer that didn"t conclude this kind of contracts last year - sold 17.1% of the total energy traded during the reviewed period through contracts it negotiated with providers and end-users, as stated by the management of the company.

The producers are selling electricity through direct negotiation with consumers, which do not participate in the auctions of the markets of the OPCOM (the operator of the Romanian energy exchange), despite that ever since 2008, the minister of the Economy passed an order, by which they are required to sell their available energy in a transparent manner. According to officials of the Ministry of the Economy, in order to sell energy directly, producers need to obtain a derogation from the order of the Minister.

The managers of the companies that trade energy through direct negotiations offered us various explanations, without providing us with concrete data on the trades concluded outside the transparent market.

Ion Lungu, the president of the Association of Electricity Providers of Romania (AFEER), considers that "any deal made on the competitive market needs to be transparent and non-discriminatory".

He said: "Even though I consider that all the deals should be made on the OPCOM markets, we can"t force producers to do that and so I am in favor of rules tha