OREANDA-NEWS. August 07, 2009. It was said by the director general of the National Power Regulating Agency Vadim Ceban specifying that the Agency had received from the Moldovagaz JSC the confirmation of the new purchasing price for natural gas fixed by Gazprom for the third quarter of 2009 in the amount of US182.3 for 1000 cubic meters.

Vadim Ceban said the NPRA was currently examining results of Moldovagaz’s activity in the first half of 2009 and basing on the new purchasing price, is performing necessary calculations to determine influence of all objective factors on the amount of the fee for natural gas supplied to final consumers. Upon the completion of this work, the NPRA will inform the society about its decision regarding the possibility of actualization of the current tariffs for consumers.

Vadim Ceban said the NPRA was authorized, under the methodology in force, to actualize the fees only if objective factors supposing financial deviations of over 3 per cent of the total amount of expenses earlier included into the fee are present. Under the contract signed in 2006 by the Moldovagaz JSC and Gazprom JSC, the purchasing price of natural gas in the third quarter of 2009 was set, basing on the average price for natural gas supplied by the Gazprom to the European states as of January 1, 2009 given the decreasing coefficient of 0.8 for Moldova as well as coefficients of the change of PLATT’S prices for gas oil and fuel oil for the last nine months.

The last time the NPRA revised fees for natural gas supplied to consumers was on July 30, 2008 as a result of the rise in the purchasing price of natural gas from US191 to US283 for 1000 cubic meters. Since August 1, 2008, the average natural gas tariff has amounted to 3523 leis (without the 5 per cent VAT) for 1000 cubic meters.