Bulgaria utilities regulator cuts gas prices by 17.6% for February 2022

Bulgaria’s utilities regulator said on February 1 that it approved a decrease in gas prices in the country by 17.6 per cent for the coming month, setting the new price at 109.88 leva a MWh, excluding transportation costs, excise and value-added tax.

The price cut approved by the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission (EWRC) was the first after several months of sharp increases, which saw the regulator-set gas price rise from 26.93 leva a MWh in January 2021 to 133.41 leva a MWh in January 2022.

In its statement on February 1, EWRC said that it approved the reduced price suggestion made by Bulgargaz, the state-owned gas company.

The firm was also keen to point out that industrial and household consumers benefitted from the lower price of gas imports from Azerbaijan, which it estimated as worth one billion leva, or about 511 million euro, since the start of 2021.

Bulgargaz has been under fire in recent weeks after it emerged that the company did not purchase the full annual contracted amounts of Azeri gas, with critics saying that if it had done so, Bulgarian consumers would have been spared a large part of the sudden price increases this winter.

(Photo: Marco Caliulo/sxc.hu)

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