EnglishPrime Minister Emil Boc stated, in the beginning of yesterday"s Government meeting, that he invited the chairman of the ANRE, Petru Lificiu, to participate, in order to discuss gas prices.
At the end of last week, Lificiu said that gas prices won"t go down before autumn, to allow gas distributors and carriers to pay their outstanding debts incurred last year.
The head of the ANRE said that a 3% price decrease is expected for Q4 this year.
Petru Lificiu gave the following explanation for the maintaining of gas prices: "The price of the oil barrel has dropped spectacularly lately, and the prices for imported natural gas, which reached a high in December and January - USD 540 per thousand cubic meters - followed suit. The question is legitimate: if imported gas and the oil barrel are getting cheaper, why doesn"t the price of gas go down? Because there are outstanding debts from the past year, that have not yet been paid and have been rolled over. These old costs need to be covered."
According to Newsin, the head of the ANRE admitted that a price cut would have been possible on April 1st, but it wouldn"t have been desirable. Postponing the lowering of tariffs until autumn would have been a better solution. The official said that prices may be cut by 3% in autumn 2009, but he warned the public that they should not expect other major price cuts in the future. According to Lificiu, the current price of gas is 102.48 lei/MWh.
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