The heat bills for January for most of the apartments in Chisinau will vary between 500 and 1,500 lei. Director of the municipal invoicing company “Infocom” Ion Margineanu, in the January 16 meeting of officials of Chisinau services and divisions, said the average price of heat in December was 26.08 lei per square meter, IPN reports.

According to Ion Margineanu, of the 117,000 apartments for which “Infocom” does calculations, 20,000 apartments (17%) will receive heat bills for January to the value of up to 500 lei, 38,000 apartments (32%) of 500 to 1,000 lei, while 39,000 apartments (33%) of 1,000 to 1,500 lei. 15,000 apartments (13%) will pay 1,500 to 2,000 lei for heat, while over 4,000 apartments (3%) over 2,000 lei.

For October–December, cold-month allowances were calculated for more than 30,000 families, to the value of over 32 million lei. Compared with the previous season, the number of those entitled to such allowances is by about 5,000 lower for now. However, last year’s level is expected to be reached by the end of season.

Technical director of the heat supplier SA “Termoelectrica” Iurie Razlovan said consumption this year is by 6% higher than the previous heating season given the colder weather.