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SME will become captive consumers following the liberalisation of the natural gas prices from Jan. 1, 2015
The small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) will become captive consumers following the liberalisation of the natural gas prices from Jan. 1, 2015, since the laws in force do not provide for alternative solutions for the need of heating agent, the chairman of the National Council of the Romanian Private SMEs, Ovidiu Nicolescu told a news conference on Friday.
'Non-home consumers, where the SMEs also fall into benefited from the advantage of the regulated tariffs by August 2014, the month when the last phase in the price regulation was applied, meaning an increase. At this moment, the price borne by the SME sector is a price obtained by the offer-and-demand principle, namely around 96 lei per megawatt/hour. However, the centralised natural gas market is dominated by OMV Petrom Gaz (company), a thing that entails the emergence of the monopoly phenomenon,' Nicolescu said.
The Council head added, 'Moreover, the lack of experience of the monitoring and regulating authorities might lead to delayed reactions in the event of price imbalances. Therefore, amid the lack of measures likely to offer alternative solutions to the need of heating agent, we will reach the situation in which the SME consumers will fall into the category of captive consumers, even if they can much more easily change the supplier by unilateral decision'.
The only instrument that can be used to take action on such imbalance, Nicolescu explained, is generated by the Competition Law, by which the price can be blocked for no more than six months.
'The measure can be taken by the Government, but it must have the Fair Competition Council's assent. The matter is who establishes if we are dealing with an imbalance or if it is a normal effect of the free market, given there is no jurisprudence', the Council chairman asked.