SA Moldovagaz reiterates that its priority is to restructure all the enterprises and financial deviations, to optimize and reduce costs so that the reduction in gas transit does not affect the final tariffs for the supply of natural gas, IPN reports.
In a press release, the company says the tariff for the supply of natural gas to end-users has a series of components, such as the cost of purchased gas that depends on the purchase price in US dollars and the exchange rate of the national currency, gas transportation tariff, gas distribution tariff and gas supply costs that include the supplier’s costs and profitability.
In the structure of the current average tariff for the supply of natural gas to end users, the gas transportation costs represent only 3.7%. The other 96.3% refer to the price of natural gas and the natural gas supply and distribution costs. Of these, 71.4% represent the cost of natural gas.
The National Agency for Energy Regulation’s December 2019 decision to raise the natural gas transportation tariff can theoretically lead to a rise in the final tariff for natural consumers by only 2%. However, so as not to modify the current tariff, the remaining costs associated with the purchase of natural gas and the natural gas distribution and supply costs should be reduced by 2.1%.
SA Moldovagaz aims to do this by decreasing the price of natural gas from US$ 178.5 planned in the current tariff to at most US$ 173 planned for 2020 and by reducing the gas distribution and supply costs, including by reorganizing the enterprises and optimizing costs for all types of activities.
The company noted that it sustains losses caused by the tariff inconsistencies and the necessity of compensating for these losses. The current tariffs were approved in 2018. Then, the exchange rate was of 17.68 lei per US dollar (3,155.9 lei / 1,000 m3). In fact, the real price of gas in 2018 was US$ 217.46 (3,670 lei / 1,000 m3), while in 2019 – US$ 233.67 (more than 4,000 lei/1,000 m3). This way, only owing to the rise in the prices of gas in 2018-2019, SA Moldovagaz generated negative financial deviations of over US$ 1.5 billion. These negative financial deviations can be accepted in the tariff calculations for a longer period of time so as not to affect their value.
