Natural gas prices are rising by 32.52% in November after the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission approved a price of €58.43 per megawatt-hour. The amount excludes access and transmission fees, excise duty and VAT. At this price, Bulgargaz will sell the fuel to end suppliers and district heating companies.
The initial application submitted by the public supplier was for €59.08 per megawatt-hour. KEVR thus cut the proposed price by €0.65, or approximately 1.1%. Compared with the October price, however, the increase remains 32.52%.
How much has the price increase been limited
The reduction was achieved after the regulator insisted that Bulgargaz use additional quantities of natural gas from the Chiren storage facility. According to KEVR, without this measure the price increase in November would have reached 39.37% compared with October.
This means that using the reserves limited the increase by 6.85 percentage points compared with that scenario. If international prices had remained at their levels when the application was submitted, and with the new supply mix, the increase would have been around 28%.
“Regardless of the current extreme prices on international energy markets, reaching €100–105 per megawatt-hour, a 34 percent increase is unacceptable because it would come as a shock to district heating companies and the country’s economy,” said KEVR Chairman Plamen Mladenovski.The price mix includes the full monthly quantities under the long-term contract with Azerbaijan, as well as liquefied natural gas purchased by Bulgargaz following an auction organized with traders.
What Rumen Radev promised
On October 28, Prime Minister Rumen Radev said that household electricity and heating prices would not increase during the next heating season, until July 1, 2027. He welcomed the regulator’s intention to keep these prices unchanged despite the rise in gas prices on international markets, bTV reported.
“Household heating and electricity prices should not change throughout the entire next season, until July 1, 2027,” Radev said.The prime minister’s promise concerns electricity and heating prices, not natural gas itself. Households that heat their homes directly with gas remain exposed to the approved 32.52% increase.
KEVR said it has regulatory mechanisms to prevent an increase in household electricity and heating prices from January 1. For natural gas, however, the November price has already been set at €58.43 per megawatt-hour.
Sources: bta.bg, mediapool.bg, btvnovinite.bg