Major gas distributors want the gas price for population hiked by 17 per cent as of April 1. National Regulatory Agency in Energy (ANRE) head Petre Lificiu said however that such a rise cannot be sustained. “The population cannot support such an increase, and the economy has not set off to such a degree so as to raise prices as much as distributors want to,” Lificiu said, quoted by Realitatea.net. The two major natural gas distributors in Romania, E.ON and GDF SUEZ Energy, asked ANRE to increase the price of gas supplied to population by 17 per cent and, respectively, 11 per cent. ANRE president said the regulatory authority has not yet made any decision in this respect. During the past year, ANRE decided to cut gas prices twice: on May 1, 2009, ANRE cut three per cent from the final gas invoice, and as of July 1, five per cent.
EUR 400 M losses because of thermal heating system
Thermal heating system rehabilitation would require EUR 3.6 bln investments, since without them Romania loses EUR 400 M every year, the head of the Chamber of Deputies’ industries and services committee Iulian Iancu said yesterday. “Gas is the solution for a problem Romania has not been able to solve in the last 20 years – the centralised thermal heating system. The system burns EUR 400 M, it burns this money every winter, and since 2000 until today it has burnt EUR 4.5 bln. If we had allotted it for distribution system renovation, the cost would have been EUR 3.6 bln,” Iancu said, quoted by Mediafax. The resources for energy sector development target nuclear energy production, the use of natural gas and renewable energy, but investors are awaiting a stable legal framework on national level, he added.
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