Ministry of Energy and BEH start inspection in Bulgargaz
It will be checked whether the gas company has no reserves so as not to increase the price of natural gas by 13 percent
The Ministry of Energy and BEH are starting an inspection of Bulgargaz EAD for 2020, including the realized revenues and reported costs, as well as their impact on the price of natural gas offered by the public supplier for April this year. This was announced by the press center of the Ministry of Energy.
The reason for the inspection, according to the announcement, is the report of the working group to the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission (EWRC) on the price of natural gas from April.
"The Energy and Water Regulatory Commission found a positive difference for 2020 between the forecast and reported by Bulgargaz EAD costs for natural gas supply. As a result, the price of natural gas offered by the company for the month of April 2021 in its capacity as a public supplier has been reduced by the amount of overstated revenue established by the EWRC, ”the ministry quoted the report as saying.
Further in the report, which, among other things, has more dots due to the confidentiality of information than actual data, it is stated that “Based on the data and documents provided and after the calculations, the price for April 2021 at which the public supplier should sell natural gas to the final suppliers of natural gas and to persons to whom a license for production and transmission of heat has been issued, amounting to BGN 32.09 / MWh (excluding prices for access, transmission, excise and VAT).
In practice, these data and the multipoints indicate that the representatives of the Ministry of Energy and BEH will probably check whether there are no opportunities for even greater reduction in the price of natural gas.
Bulgargaz's proposal, which was discussed on Thursday, March 25, is for the price of gas in April this year. in the amount of BGN 32.32 per MWh. It should be noted that the price offered by the public supplier decreased compared to the estimated value of BGN 33.41 per MWh announced in early February.
However, the increase compared to the price for March this year (BGN 28.64 per MWh) is 13%.
A similar situation occurred in September 2020, when Bulgargaz asked the EWRC to terminate the administrative proceedings for the price of gas due to a proposal to increase by more than 20 percent. The difference is that then the application of the gas company was stopped exactly on the day when the EWRC had to rule after the final application. Now the inspection is at least before April 1, the day on which Bulgargaz must submit a corrected application for the price of natural gas, and the EWRC after a closed meeting to issue a final price decision.