Offsetting measures as gas market opens up

By Chryssa Liaggou

The Public Gas Corporation (DEPA) is processing a plan to offset the losses of the local gas supply corporations, known as EPAs, in the natural gas retail market, in cooperation with Shell and ENI, the other main stakeholders in the three EPAs in Athens, Thessaly and Thessaloniki.

This plan provides for lengthening of the supply permits as well as the expansion of the geographical areas in which the companies can operate. The aim is to make this plan the main pillar of the bill on the natural gas retail market’s liberalization, which according to the country’s agreement with its creditors should have been passed into law by the end of June.

The Environment and Energy Ministry attributes the delay to the demanding issue of the bill concerning the Public Power Corporation’s part-privatization. Ministry sources say there is no problem with the country’s creditors regarding that delay and that the bill will be submitted to Parliament in the next few days.

One of the crucial issues which the bill must address concerns the offsetting benefits to investors ENI and Shell as well as DEPA, which holds a 51 percent stake in each EPA, as they will lose the exclusive right to supply and transmit natural gas even though this had been secured for a 30-year period with the consent of the European Commission in 2000 (when they entered the market), in an exception to European Union rules.

The investors have asked Athens and the European competition authorities for a period of adjustment to the new status and for a partial offsetting of losses so as to spare the state from a court battle for damages based on Athens forfeiting the contract signed for a 30-year exclusivity.

The lengthening of the permits to supply gas along...