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Gas Prices to Match the West's
The Federal Tariffs Service submitted a draft resolution on a formula for pricing natural gas to the government yesterday. The formula is meant for use in forming long-term agreements with consumers. In essence, industry and electrical generators will be supplied gas at European prices (minus transportation costs and export duties) in 2001.
Consumers in Arkhangelsk Region and Altai Territory and new electrical generators will feel the effects of the new tariff plan this year.
To reach the European level, gas prices will rise by 25 percent in 2008 and then by 13 percent every half year in 2009 and 2010. New gas customers will begin paying more than the regulated price (by about 50 percent) immediately, and customers in Arkhangelsk Region and Altai Territory will pay “a separate level of prices” that take account of investment in the construction of trunk gas pipelines there. Kommersant has learned that natural gas will cost $106 per 1000 cu. m. in Arkhangelsk, that is, about twice the average price in Russia.
A source at RAO UES of Russia opined that the new tariff could not effect new electricity generators or individual blocks at generators, contrary to the indications of the Federal Tariffs Service, because they are not new consumers, since contracts for gas are made with the regional or territorial generating companies that they are part of. The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade (which also submitted the draft resolution on gas pricing to the government), the Ministry of Industry and Energy and the Federal Tariffs Service all declines to comment on that idea.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 16, 2007
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Photo: Grigoriy Sobchenko
