Bulgaria's energy and water regulator, the EWRC, has set the price of natural gas for November at €58.43 per megawatt hour, up 32.52% on October. Public supplier Bulgargaz sells gas at this price to end suppliers and to licensed producers and transmitters of heat.
Bulgargaz filed its request on 12 October, and the next day it emerged that it wanted €59.08 per megawatt hour, a rise of 34%. At an open meeting on 28 October the regulator rejected that price. It asked the company to look for reserves and get the best possible price for consumers.
Earlier on this story: Bulgargaz asks for gas price to rise by nearly 34% from 1 November
The reserves turned out to be in the Chiren storage facility, where Bulgargaz took extra gas. At the meeting, chief executive Georgi Tatarski said the price would be revised because of this.
EWRC chairman Plamen Mladenovski said: "A 34 percent increase is unacceptable, because it would be a shock for the district heating companies and for the country's economy." He said prices on international markets are extreme, at €100–105 per megawatt hour.
The extra gas from Chiren cut the rise. Without it, and with current higher exchange prices in the Netherlands, the increase for November would have been 39.37%. Had exchange prices stayed at their 12 October level, the new mix with more gas from the storage site would have meant a rise of about 28%.
The November mix includes the extra gas from Chiren, the whole monthly volume under the long-term contract with Azerbaijan, and liquefied gas from traders whose contracts were signed after a tender.
The approved price does not include access and transmission fees, excise duty or VAT. It is made up of the gas price at the entry to the transmission networks and two more components. One covers public supply under Ordinance No. 2 of 19 March 2013 on regulating natural gas prices. The other pays Bulgargaz back for the cost of storing gas at Chiren, which comes from its duties under the Emergency Action Plan.
Mladenovski said flatly that the EWRC has the regulatory tools to stop electricity and household heating prices from rising from 1 January.