New heat charge will take effect after decision is published in Official Gazette

The new charge for the heat supplied by SA Termocom to end-users in the municipality of Chisinau will be 987 lei per gigacalorie, by 9.9% or 89 lei higher than the previous charge. It will come into force after the decision of the National Agency for Energy Regulation is published in the Official Gazette and will be used until December 31, 2011, Info-Prim Neo reports. The Agency’s director general Victor Parlicov said discussions had been held with the thermoelectric plants CET-1 and CET-2 and Termocom during the last few days in order to identify possibilities of reducing a number of costs included in the tariffs and obtain a reasonable charge in the end. Thus, CET-1 excluded costs of 9.3 million lei, CET-2 − of 2 million lei, while SA Termocom − of 20 million lei. They were mainly costs planned for repair works. The heat production tariff for CET-1 will be 718.55 lei, up 23.8%, while for CET-2 – 587.87 lei, up 17.7%. Initially, the thermoelectric plants asked for a rise of 23.9% and, respectively, 20%. The reduction in the heat tariff asked by the CETs enabled to approve a heat charge of 987 lei per gigacalorie for end-users, lower than the charge of 1 045 lei demanded by Termocom. The CETs and Termocom asked adjusting the heat tariffs after the price of gas for them was raised by 26.4% on October 1. The managers of the three companies were dissatisfied with the new electricity and heat tariffs approved by the energy regulator, but voiced hope that the purchase price of gas, which is used by Moldova to produce heat and electricity, will be decreased after January 1, 2012.