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Bills for natural gas will drop on average by 3.9% starting with April 1
Prices for the delivery of natural gas to household clients will drop on average by 3.9% starting April 1, as a result of the reduction of the acquisition costs for the gas destined to supply in regulated regime and some distribution tariffs, the National Authority for Energy Regulation (ANRE) announced.
‘Starting with 1 April2015, the prices for the regulated supply of natural gas to household clients will drop on averageby 3.9 % ( the average calculated depending on the share of each supplier out of the 39 who deliver natural gas to the household clients from the regulated market). In principle, this is due to the drop in costs for the acquisition of natural gas destined to the supply in regulated regime, the elimination of the costs for the acquisition of natural gas from import ( in the ANRE evaluation a source of import of 0% for April, May and June was taken into consideration) and the maintenance at the same level of the tarrifs for distribution for E.ON Distributie Romania and the drop in distribution tariffs for Distrigaz Sud Retele’ shows the press release of ANRE.
Thus, starting with 1 April, for the household clients from the regulated market whose supplier is E.ON Energie Romania, the delivery prices for natural gas will increase by almost 1.5% and for the household clients on the regulated market whose supplier is GDF Suez Energy Romania the prices will drop by 9%.
The differences between the two suppliers were determined by the partial recovery by E.ON Energie Romania of the acquisition costs for natural gas from import from the period 2008-2012, the total recovery of those categories of costs by GDF Suez Energy Romania and the maintanence at the same level of the distribution tariffs for E.ON Distributie Romania and the drop of distribution tarrifs by almost 20% for Distrigaz Sud Retele.
‘In this context,we mention the fact that the process of deregulation of the domestic market of natural gas for non-household clients was finalised on 31 December 2014. For this category of clients, ANRE does not decide on the supply prices for natural gas, as on the competition market of natural gas they are formed on the basis of demand and offer as a result of the competition mechanisms’ the press release says.
ANRE says that, taking into consideration that the distribution service benefits all non-household clients connected to the distribution systems, the drop in distribution tarrifs is an element which could generate/determine a drop of the supply prices corresponding to the competition market, depending on the services which belong to the supply contracts in negotiated regime and contract conditions.
Romania committed to the European Union and the IMF to eliminate the regulated prices in the sectorof gas and electricity.
The gas market was deregulated for companies on 1 January 2014, so that at present only the population gets gas at regulated prices.
IMF and the EC required the government to increase the price of gas for the population and the thermal energy untis (CET) from 53.3 lei to 62 lei MWh starting from 1 April. The government advanced the price of 58 lei, not accepted by IMF and EC.The refuse to increase the price of gas was one of the reasons for which no new letter of intent was added to the agreement with the IMF.
According to the calendar agreed by the government in 2011 with IMF and EC, the price of gas for household consumers should have increased from 53.3 lei MWh in July 2014 to 54.6 lei in October 2014 in January 2015 at 58.9 lei in April 2015 and 62 lei in July 2015.
The increase of price was postponed by the government, which wanted to expand the calendar for the elimination of the regulated prices by three years until 30 June 2021.