ANRE: Some energy suppliers "artificially raise their prices"

Some energy suppliers have artificially increased their prices to demand more money from the state budget through the mechanism of capping and offsetting bills, according to a document of the National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE) quoted by Agerpres.

"During the verifications we identified energy suppliers who used methods / means of artificially increasing the weighted average purchase price by concluding at excessive prices intra-group procurement contracts, on centralized markets (products with short-term delivery - week / month) and additional documents amending the contract price concluded after the publication in the Official Gazette of GEO 118/2021, in order to increase the amount settled from the state budget", the quoted document shows.

These transactions concluded for the purpose of artificial price increase may be suspected, according to European regulations, of possible market manipulation, ANRE representatives underlined.

The suppliers also used other ways to artificially increase the amount settled, ANRE representatives claim.

Starting with February 2022, the month in which compensation is granted on the cap scheme for all non-household customers, suppliers have been identified who have requested compensation for their own end customers, declaring as the only source of purchase quantities of electricity they received in as end customers of other suppliers, who in turn requested compensation for these quantities. In this way, compensation for the same amount of electricity was requested twice.

Until June 6, 2022, ANRE received 239 settlement requests from a number of 65 suppliers, resolved 62 requests and confirmed to the Ministry of Energy the payment of an amount of 34.8 million lei related to the November and December invoices, as well as part of January 2022.

A number of 35 requests, worth 8 million lei, were rejected, as the energy purchase price was below the ceiling approved by law.

Translated by: Radu Matei