Romania Increases Tariffs for Underground Natural Gas Storage
Romania has increased tariffs on underground natural gas storage, which will impact both consumer and industrial users.
The decision by the National Department for Control in the Energy Field, controlled tariffs for underground natural gas storage services provided by Romgaz and GDF Suez's Depomures will see increases of over 50%.
The increase, the first since since 2009, was announced on April 2012 but was postponed until now.
Romgaz, having a working capacity of 29.355.360 MW/h, set the price for natural gas underground storage for the period April 2013-March 2014 at about $5 USD per MW/h, an almost 55% increase. Depomures, with capacity of 3,154,550 MW/h, set an increase of over 57%, at around $4 USD per MW/h.
On July 1st 2008 Romania began measuring and invoicing natural gas consumption in MW/h, the cubic meter unit of measurement is no longer used.
Natural gas suppliers and transmission system operator Transgaz are obliged to have minimum stocks of natural gas in underground storage for the safe supply of end users and to ensure the physical equilibrium of the national transport system for natural gas.
From 2013- 2014 the Romanian Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE) established for suppliers a total minimum stockpile of natural gas of 24.47 billion MW/h, 16.54 billion MW/h of which is for the controlled market and the rest for the free sector. Transgaz has the obligation to establish a minimum gas stockpile of 212,000 MW/h.
Silviu Molnar