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Natural gas prices might increase by up to 10 percent starting with 1 April, after liberalising the domestic market's gas prices, Chairman of the National Energy Regulation Authority (ANRE) Niculae Havrilet said on Wednesday.
"We'll have a price modification in the natural gas sector from 1 April. We'll also have finalised market regularisation for natural gas and a possibility exists that we have an upward adjustment in the gas prices, but not of 10 percent. We believe it will be an increase of a few percentages, up to 10 percent," said Havrilet.
Just two days ago, Managing Director of E.ON Romania Frank Hajdinjak told agerpres. that the household gas prices might grow by over 10 percent from 1 April.
According to Havrilet, an increase will occur because the price for domestic gas, which is now 60 lei / MWh, will get adjusted to the market prices, estimated to be 68-72 lei this summer. The ANRE head added that the population will not feel the growth that much since gas consumption in summer is pretty low.
"(...) Consumption will be very low until November. Practically, there will be a 6-7 month period to see what the smallest gas price is going to be in the end in the consumer's basket. Households have a consumer basket, including domestic gas production, natural gas in storage and imported gas. Structuring the basket so that we have the smallest price will benefit the household consumers," Havrilet said.
Practically, Havrilet concluded, the households will consume the lowest-priced natural gas, no matter its origins.
