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Chisinau, August 5 (Interfax) - Moldova will pay $186.85 per 1,000 cubic meters of natural gas from Gazprom in the third quarter.

That price is 27% lower than the price for Russian gas in the second quarter.

The decline is due to lower world prices for gas-oil and fuel oil, an official at Moldovan-Russian Moldova Gaz told Interfax.

Under the contract running to 2011 that Moldova and Gazprom signed in 2006, the price Moldova pays for gas is adjusted quarterly using a special formula based on price trends on the oil product market (fuel oil and gas-oil) in the previous nine months.

Moldova paid $339.25 per 1,000 cubic meters for Russian gas in the first quarter and $255.71 in the second.

If current oil product prices hold steady, the price of gas imports will not change substantially and the average price for the year will be $257 per 1,000 cubic meters, the official said.

Although the price of Russian gas has fallen twice this year, the price to Moldovan consumers has been unchanged since July 2008, when rates rose 27%. The Agency for Energy Regulation justified the increase by pointing to an increase in the price of gas to $253 per 1,000 cubic meters, up from $191. The price hike raised the average rate for consumers to $332.2.