The government on Thursday adopted a set of decisions on the transfer of the job of delivering gas supplies from INA's "Prirodni Plin (Natural Gas) company to the Croatian power provider (HEP) that will deliver gas to distributers who provide Croatian households with this fuel.
Thus, HEP will be the new wholesale gas supplier as of 1 April for a period of three years, at the state level.
The gas market law envisages that such wholesale supplier sells gas supplies at a regulated price to intermediate distributors who provide end-users with gas.
Being the only Croatian gas producer, INA is obliged to allocate a portion of its gas production to Croatian households exclusively, and HEP can sell this gas portion to distributors who provide end-users, that is households.
This means that HEP is not allowed to trade in those allocated gas supplies, according to Economy Minister Ivan Vrdoljak's explanation.
He said that the latest decisions ensured supplying households with gas and reduces concentration on the gas wholesale market, with none of protagonists having over 50% share in the market. This may pave the way for a harsher market competition that regularly leads to price reductions, he added.
The next three years when HEP is the only state-level wholesale distributor is a transitional period and the country must strive towards full liberalisation of the gas market, according to him.
Many European countries regulate gas prices partially or fully, and Croatia has opted for "a median variant" of regulated gas price for households and unregulated price for the industry, the minister said.
(Hina)
News
