BRATISLAVA, May 26, (WEBNOVINY) — According to the opposition SMER-SD party, Slovak gas utility Slovensky Plynarensky Priemysel (SPP) wants to increase prices of natural gas for households twice in the course of the year. As the party’s Chairman Robert Fico claimed at a press conference on Thursday, SPP asked the Regulatory Office for Network Industries (URSO) to increase the prices of natural gas for households on average by 8 percent from July 2011 and by 30 percent on average from September. “Let’s say that the price of natural gas for the people will rise by an average of 40 percent this year. This increase will really be drastic,” emphasized Fico. He believes that the regulatory authority will sweep the proposal from table.
According to the dominant opposition party, increasing the price of natural gas is currently not necessary. “There is absolutely no reason for increasing the price of gas. I do believe that the Regulatory Office will not allow this. Yet, we are afraid that after the change of the law on regulation, new people will come to the Office’s management, installed by the ruling coalition, and will approve the proposals of the gas industry people,” said Fico. According to him, had the current government not abolished the law on price proposals, such proposal as the current one would not have reach the regulators.
“URSO is presided over by Mr. Holjencik, a SMER-SD nominee. URSO is supposed to decide on the so-called scandalous SPP proposal. We will watch with enormous interest how this gentleman will act,” was the reaction of Economy Minister Juraj Miskov. According to him, entire URSO is managed by Fico’s nominees. “In the case that Mr. Holjencik approves this scandalous proposal, the political party SMER and Robert Fico will bear political responsibility for the gas price increase,” underlined Miskov. He also said that nominees of the state representatives in the company voted against the price proposals that SPP submitted to the regulatory authority.
As spokesman for URSO Miroslav Luptak told SITA, SPP already sent them a proposal of the new prices for approval. He, however, refused to comment the proposal more closely. ”It is our practice not to release any comments to the price proposal during the approval procedure,” said Luptak. He also said that the regulatory authority has to decide before June 6.
Already some time ago, SPP announced that it closely watches the situation with prices of crude oil and oil products on world markets, as well as changes in the exchange rate of the euro against the U.S. dollar. These are the factors which mostly influence the final price of natural gas. “We are watching the development of prices closely. Our purchase price of natural gas depends on two key factors which are the prices of crude oil and the exchange rate of the euro against the U.S. dollar. Further development will depend on these two factors,” SPP spokesman Ondrej Sebesta told SITA in early May. This Thursday, he confirmed that SPP would like to increase the prices of natural gas for households in average by 8 percent from July 2011 and by in average almost 21 percent from September.
Last time the prices of natural gas for households changed was at the beginning of 2011 when they grew on average by 4.47 percent. At the end of 2010, the regulatory authority also approved increasing the average price of gas used for households’ central heating production by 6.12 percent.
SITA