In brief
- Hydrogen enters the quality specification for pipeline gas for the first time, with a limit of 2% by mole at most. The old annex did not mention it at all.
- The gross calorific value, the figure that turns the cubic metres on the meter into kilowatt-hours on the bill, now gets a ceiling as well as a floor for the first time: between 34.95 and 42.68 MJ per cubic metre, that is between 9.71 and 11.86 kWh per cubic metre.
- Nitrogen is tightened from a maximum of 10% to a maximum of 5%, and carbon dioxide from 8% to 2.5%. Producers have 12 months, until 9 September 2027, to bring their installations up to standard.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) No. 765 of 9 September 2026
In force from: 9 September 2026, the date of publication
From 9 September 2026, the gas reaching the boiler in your flat has a new list of mandatory properties, and one of them did not exist until now: hydrogen. Order of the President of ANRE No. 57/2026 replaces Annex No. 5 to the Regulation on the measurement of quantities of natural gas in its entirety, that is the table saying what the gas sold in Romania may contain and within what limits. The order carries the number immediately after the one by which ANRE approved, on 28 August, the Hydrogen Code and the mandatory renewable hydrogen quotas. The first act says how much hydrogen has to be produced, the second says how much hydrogen is allowed into the gas pipeline: 2% by mole at most.
Annex No. 5 is the part of the regulation that anyone paying a bill feels. The regulation does not sell gas; it establishes how gas is measured and how cubic metres are turned into energy. The formula in Article 84 is short: the energy billed is the volume multiplied by the gross calorific value. The meter gives the volume, and the calorific value comes from the chemical composition of the gas. Annex No. 5 fixes exactly that composition.
Until now, the table held a single figure connected to energy, a minimum threshold of 7,840 kcal per cubic metre, that is 32.82 MJ or 9.12 kWh. There was no ceiling and no Wobbe index, even though the regulation had defined the term back in 2008. The new annex has both. The gross calorific value has to lie between 34.95 and 42.68 MJ per cubic metre, with a short-duration tolerance up to 45.28, and the Wobbe index between 45.70 and 54.00 MJ per cubic metre. Relative density gets a range of its own too, 0.555 to 0.70.
The figures were not invented in Bucharest. The order adds to the list of standards in Annex No. 2 the standard SR EN 16726 on the quality of group H gas, and the relative density range and the upper end of the Wobbe index are precisely those of this European standard. The second standard added, SR EN 437, concerns test gases for gas appliances, that is exactly the boilers and cookers that burn the gas at the end of the pipeline.
The rest of the table tightens. Nitrogen drops from a maximum of 10% by mole to a maximum of 5%, with a short-duration tolerance up to 7% and a list of entry points where 10% is still accepted. Carbon dioxide drops from 8% to 2.5%, with a tolerance up to 4% and four exempted points. Hydrogen sulphide drops from 6.8 to 5 milligrams per cubic metre. Oxygen stays at 0.02% by mole but is given exceptions for the first time around biomethane injection installations, 0.2% in the transmission system and 0.5% in distribution.
What it changes in practice
The order applies from the date of publication, 9 September 2026. Article VI says only that the order is published in the Official Gazette of Romania, without providing for a later date, and Article 12(3) of Law No. 24/2000 establishes that normative acts of autonomous administrative authorities enter into force on the date of publication unless they provide otherwise. The three-day period after publication concerns laws and ordinances, not ANRE orders.
For a household customer, the bill does not change on the day of publication. The meter does not change, the reading interval does not change and the method of calculation does not change: the order touches none of the articles that govern them. What does change is the range within which the second factor in the multiplication is allowed to move. The gross calorific value used for billing must from now on lie between 9.71 and 11.86 kWh per cubic metre. Between the two ends of that band there is a 22.1% difference in energy for the same cubic metre displayed by the meter, so it is worth looking at that figure on the bill, not only at the volume.
The floor rises. The old limit of 7,840 kcal per cubic metre works out at 9.12 kWh, while the new limit of 34.95 MJ works out at 9.71 kWh. That is 0.59 kWh more for every cubic metre, an increase of 6.5% in the minimum energy a customer is entitled to receive for the same measured quantity. The threshold is not felt in the months when the gas is good, because it does not say how much you get, it says how little you may be given. It matters precisely in the months when quality slips and the figure on the bill falls without anything in the meter changing.
The hydrogen limit runs the other way, and here things have to be called by their name. At the same volume, hydrogen carries roughly one third of the energy of methane. If 2% of the gas becomes hydrogen instead of methane, a cubic metre carries about 0.5 MJ less, that is around 1.4% of the usual energy content. Since billing is by energy and not by volume, the customer loses no money: they will burn slightly more cubic metres for the same heat but will pay for the same kilowatt-hours. The one who pays the difference is whoever has an appliance designed for a particular gas, and that is why the standard on test gases was added.
For producers, Article III sets the hard deadline: 12 months from entry into force, that is until 9 September 2027, for the gas fed into the upstream pipelines, into the transmission system or into distribution to meet the new requirements. It is not an obligation of intent but one of result, with technical measures on the production, treatment, conditioning, compression or delivery installations.
For companies with a project under way, Article II is the useful part. Technical designs prepared on the basis of a technical connection approval issued before 9 September 2026 and currently at the design, verification, authorisation, execution or acceptance stage are to be adapted to the new requirements. The adaptation is made by revising the documentation, with no new approval, if the technical solution stays the same. If the solution or the technical parameters change, the upstream system operator updates the approval free of charge, at the beneficiary’s request. Commissioning nevertheless remains conditional on proof of compliance with the new requirements.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
The previous version of Annex No. 5 was the one resulting from ANRE Order No. 80/2020, in force since 21 May 2020. The regulation was amended after that date, most recently by ANRE Order No. 64/2023, with effect from 1 May 2023, but those amendments concerned other chapters. The comparison below is made against the consolidated version as it stood before 9 September 2026, not against the 2008 text.
The first change is methane, and it runs against the general impression. The 2020 order had raised the methane threshold from 70% to 85% by mole, with a list of exempted production points. The new annex once again says a minimum of 70% by mole, for everyone, with no list of exceptions. On paper, the methane threshold falls by 15 percentage points.
In practice it does not fall that far, and this shows only if you add up the column. If you sum the maximum limits of all the other components in the table, 10% ethane, 3.5% propane, 1.5% butane, 0.5% pentane, 0.1% hexane, 0.05% heptane, 0.05% higher hydrocarbons, 5% nitrogen, 2.5% carbon dioxide, 0.02% oxygen and 2% hydrogen, you get 25.22%. That leaves 74.78% for methane, almost five points above the threshold written in the table. Even with the extended tolerances for nitrogen and carbon dioxide, the sum rises to 28.72% and leaves methane 71.28%. The 70% threshold never gets to be the limit that bites: it is overtaken by the arithmetic of the other rows.
The second change is energy. The old annex had a single figure, a minimum of 7,840 kcal per cubic metre, expressed in a unit long out of use. The new annex has a minimum, a maximum and a short-duration tolerance, expressed in megajoules, plus a Wobbe index and a relative density that did not exist at all.
The third change is the air in the gas. Nitrogen is halved, carbon dioxide falls to less than a third. These are the components that do not burn, so they are exactly the ones that make a cubic metre worth less energy. Tightening them is the substantive part of this order, even if the title does not announce it.
The fourth change is the water dew point, that is the temperature at which the water in the gas begins to condense in the pipeline. The old wording was a single one, a maximum of minus 15 degrees Celsius at the pressure at the delivery point. The new wording splits it in two, according to delivery pressure: minus 8 degrees at a pressure of 40 bara for deliveries above 24 bara, and minus 15 degrees at pipeline pressure for deliveries below 24 bara.
What has disappeared is worth saying too. The old annex had two rows the new one no longer has: the maximum permitted temperature of the natural gas, 50 degrees Celsius, and the explicit mention of ethyl mercaptan as the odorising substance. The temperature no longer appears anywhere in the annex. Mercaptans do appear, but as a family of substances rather than as a named substance, which leaves the operator free to choose a different odorant.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- The calorific value gets a ceiling and a Wobbe index for the first time, so the gas can be neither too lean nor too rich for the appliances connected to the pipeline.
- The minimum energy threshold rises from 9.12 to 9.71 kWh per cubic metre, by 6.5%, in favour of whoever pays the bill.
- Nitrogen and carbon dioxide, the components that do not burn, are tightened to a half and to less than a third of the old limits respectively.
- The hydrogen limit closes a regulatory gap opened by the Hydrogen Code approved on 28 August 2026: it is now known how much hydrogen is allowed into the gas network.
- Biomethane gets a regime of its own for oxygen, with values measured at the injection point itself and a 24-hour rolling average, which makes workable the injection-restriction obligations introduced by Government Emergency Ordinance No. 9/2026.
- Companies with projects under way pay nothing for updating the technical connection approval, even where the technical solution changes.
What remains a problem
- All the figures are given „under standard conditions”, an expression the amended regulation defines nowhere. The regulation defines „base conditions” as 15 degrees Celsius and 1.01325 bar, and Article 8(4) expressly allows a switch to 0 degrees Celsius. The difference between the two references is 5.5% on every volume-based value.
- The total sulphur limit is written as a range, 20 to 50 mg per cubic metre, without saying who picks the figure within the range.
- The calorific value is expressed in the annex in megajoules, while the billing formula in Article 84 of the same regulation calls for kilowatt-hours. The conversion is simple, but everyone has to do it themselves.
- The 12-month deadline for producers runs to 9 September 2027, while the exception for one particular production point, Galbenu II, expires 40 days earlier, on 31 July 2027. The two deadlines sit badly together.
- The maximum permitted temperature of the gas, 50 degrees, disappears from the annex with no explanation in the text of the order.
- The standard the figures are taken from, SR EN 16726, is added to the list of non-mandatory standards, even though the values it contains become mandatory through Annex No. 5.
Practical advice
- Look on your gas bill for the line showing the gross calorific value used for billing. Article 105 of the regulation obliges the supplier to put it there, alongside consumption in cubic metres and total energy. From now on the figure has to fall between 9.71 and 11.86 kWh per cubic metre.
- If you want to check between bills, Article 104 obliges distribution operators to publish daily on their websites the gross calorific values for every locality within their licence.
- Companies holding a technical connection approval issued before 9 September 2026 and with an unfinished project should ask the upstream operator in writing for a position on Article II: does the project fall within it, and if it does, the update of the approval is free of charge.
- Anyone with appliances sensitive to combustion quality, gas engines, cogeneration units, industrial furnaces, should track the Wobbe index, not just the calorific value. Wobbe is the parameter that says whether the flame behaves the same way at the same burner setting.
- Biomethane producers should check the oxygen analyser at their injection point. The annex requires a 24-hour rolling average, so a single spot measurement is no longer sufficient as proof.
- Keep an eye out for the republication of the regulation. Article V orders it, with renumbering of the texts, and references to the current articles, including those in contracts, will have to be reread after republication.
Frequently asked questions
Does anything change in what I pay for gas?
What does the gross calorific value on the bill mean?
Will there be hydrogen in the boiler at home?
If the gas contains hydrogen, do I lose money?
Does the meter or the reading interval change?
From when does it apply and who has time to adapt?
What happens if a producer does not comply with the limits?
Where do I find the full text of the new annex?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- The annex, point 2, the „Sulf total” row, total sulphur. The limit is written „20 până la 50”, 20 to 50, so a range and not a single figure. Nothing in the act says who picks the value within the range and on what criterion. That a single limit is meant can be seen from Note 8 to the same annex, which speaks of „limita superioară”, the upper limit, in the singular, and allows it to rise for no more than 48 hours. A gas containing 45 mg of total sulphur per cubic metre is, on the published text, both compliant and non-compliant.
- The annex, point 3, the „Punctul de rouă al apei” row, water dew point. The first indent applies „pentru presiuni de livrare mai mari de 24 bara”, for delivery pressures greater than 24 bara, the second „pentru presiuni de livrare mai mici de 24 bara”, for delivery pressures lower than 24 bara. A delivery pressure of exactly 24 bara falls under neither of them, so for that pressure the annex lays down no water dew point limit at all. The previous wording, which did not split by pressure threshold, had no such gap.
- The annex, Note 7(b). The „Mercaptani” row in the table, mercaptans, imposes a minimum of 8 mg per cubic metre, that is the odorisation threshold below which the gas can no longer be smelled. Note 7(b) replaces this rule, at cross-border interconnection points, with „limitele maxime sunt de la 6 până la 8 mg/m3”, the maximum limits are from 6 to 8 mg/m3, followed by the possibility of raising it „până la o limită mai ridicată”, up to a higher limit. Neither the end of the range nor the higher limit is determined by the act, and one end of the range, 6 mg, is below the general threshold.
Editorial analysis
The order solves a real and long-standing problem. The gas quality annex had not been touched since 21 May 2020, and before that it had been written for a network supplied almost entirely from domestic production, with gas arriving in the pipeline with a predictable composition. In the meantime Romania has become interconnected, has taken biomethane into the system and has approved, six days before this order, a Hydrogen Code. A table containing no Wobbe index, no relative density and not a single row on hydrogen could no longer support any of these realities. Alignment with SR EN 16726 was the natural step, and the fact that ANRE took it through a short act, with a single annex replaced in full, is better than a series of patches.
The economic stake shows only if you add up the columns, and it is not the one in the headline. Methane appears to fall from 85% to 70%, which would be a relaxation of 15 points. It is not. The sum of the maximum limits of all the other components comes to 25.22%, so methane cannot go below 74.78%, and with the extended tolerances for nitrogen and carbon dioxide, not below 71.28%. The 70% threshold in the table has no effect of its own in any permitted combination. The real limit has been moved out of the methane row and into the rows for the inert components and into the energy limit, which is technically the better approach, since what matters for a burner is not how much methane the gas holds but how much energy it carries and how it burns.
The second observation that does not emerge from reading the act front to back concerns the relationship between the three new rows at point 3. The Wobbe index is, by definition, the calorific value divided by the square root of the relative density, and the three published ranges are not independent of one another. At the maximum permitted relative density, 0.70, the minimum Wobbe index of 45.70 requires a calorific value of at least 38.24 MJ per cubic metre, that is 10.62 kWh, some 3.29 MJ above the 34.95 threshold written in the table. Conversely, a gas sitting exactly at the energy threshold cannot exceed a relative density of 0.585, not 0.70. The combination of „minimum calorific value and maximum density” gives a Wobbe index of 41.77, below the lower limit, while „maximum calorific value and minimum density” gives 57.29, above the upper one. This is not an error, it is how any gas specification works, but it means the figures in the table cannot be read row by row, and the annex says so nowhere.
The weak point of the act is its vocabulary, not its engineering. All the values are given „under standard conditions”, an expression that appears nowhere else in the amended regulation. The regulation defines „base conditions”, at 15 degrees Celsius and 1.01325 bar, and „reference conditions”, and Article 8(4) expressly allows a switch to 0 degrees Celsius. Between the two volume references there is a ratio of 1.0549, that is 5.5% on every value expressed per cubic metre. A threshold of 34.95 MJ means something different at 15 degrees than at 0 degrees. This is not, however, an error with legal consequences, because Article 84 of the same regulation fixes the combustion temperature at 15 degrees and the standard SR ISO 13443 in the reference list is actually entitled „Standard reference conditions”, so a reader of good faith arrives at a single answer. It nevertheless remains a piece of carelessness that three words would repair.
One last detail, for anyone comparing with the European original. The upper end of the Wobbe index, 54.00 MJ per cubic metre, and the relative density range, 0.555 to 0.70, are taken over as they stand from SR EN 16726. The lower end is not: the standard starts at 46.44, while the Romanian annex writes 45.70, some 0.74 MJ lower. The difference is not large, but it runs in one direction only, towards accepting a leaner gas, and it would have deserved a justification in the explanatory memorandum, since it is the only place where Romania departs from the standard it has just added to its list of references.
What should be changed
- Defining the expression „standard conditions” in Annex No. 1 to the regulation. A single line in the terminology list, referring to the base conditions in Article 8(2). Effect: the nine volume-based values in Annex No. 5 become verifiable without interpretation, and a dispute between producer and operator can no longer be fought over the reference temperature.
- Closing the total sulphur limit to a single figure. Either 20, or 50, or a rule saying who sets the value and for which points. Effect: a laboratory analysis produces a verdict, not a discussion.
- Covering a delivery pressure of exactly 24 bara at the water dew point. It is enough for one of the two indents to say „greater than or equal to”. Effect: the gap disappears from which it can be argued that no limit applies at that pressure.
- Aligning the deadline in Article III with the dates in the notes to the annex. The exception for Galbenu II expires on 31 July 2027, while the general compliance deadline falls on 9 September 2027. Effect: the producer at Galbenu II knows whether or not the 40 days between the two dates are covered by the grace period.
- Expressing the calorific value in kilowatt-hours per cubic metre as well as in megajoules. The billing formula in Article 84 of the same regulation calls for kilowatt-hours, and bills use them. Effect: the customer can compare the figure on the bill directly with the limit in the annex, without converting.
- Updating Article 129 of the regulation at the republication ordered by Article V. That article penalises breaches of the regulation „in accordance with Gas Law No. 351/2004”, a law repealed by Article 200(2)(a) of Law No. 123/2012. Effect: the new quality requirements acquire a penalty basis that actually exists, and the republication does not carry forward a reference that has been dead for 14 years.
Original text of the legal act
The text below is reproduced in Romanian, the official form of publication.
The full text, as published in the Official Gazette of Romania
Official Gazette of Romania no. 765 of 9 September 2026 16 pages PDF, 115 KB the act starts on page 13
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This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific situations, consult a licensed attorney or tax advisor.