Government postpones increase of natural gas price for households

The Romanian state reserves the right of postponing the implementation of the schedule for the liberalization of the natural gas price for households until a dispute with the European Commission is settled; therefore, this price will not increase on October 1 as previously scheduled, the Department of Energy informed in a release.

A governmental delegation led by the minister for energy Razvan Niculescu participated in consultations with representatives of the Directorate-General for Energy of the European Commission on Monday; the talks concerned national and regional topics of the natural gas industry.

'There is also a major controversy with the Directorate-General for Enterprise [and Industry] of the European Commission over an alleged ban on natural gas exports from Romania. We have asked the Directorate-General for Energy to get involved into the settlement of this dispute, and they have accepted. We informed about the Romanian state reserving the right of deferring the application of the schedule for the liberalization of the natural gas price for households until this problem is settled. Therefore, we are not going to apply the increase of the price of natural gas agreed by the government led by [Prime Minister Emil] Boc with the European Commission for October 1,' Niculescu declared.

Romania assumed a liberalization schedule with the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission in 2012; according to it, the gas price should increase by 3 percent on October 1 2014.

Monday's talks in Brussels also covered the situation between Russia and Ukraine, Romania's interconnection with the neighbouring countries, the potential of the resources in the Black Sea, the European Commission approach to shale gas, and...