In addition to general inflation and an eight percent increase in electricity prices, citizens of Serbia can expect higher gas bills from the beginning of November. As the director of “Srbijagas” Dušan Bajatović announced, this company will calculate the exact price increase next month.
Also, Bajatović pointed out that, although the International Monetary Fund demanded that the increase be 10 percent, if the papers of “Srbijagas” show that it can do less, it “will not be at the expense of customers.”
In the IMF report issued at the beginning of July, it was stated that it is necessary to continue increasing the prices of electricity and gas in November this year and during 2024, in order to eliminate all budget subsidies to state energy companies, but also to finance investment spending in the coming years.
Energy expert Velimir Gavrilović sees the announced price increase as a step towards fulfilling the agreement reached between Serbia and the International Monetary Fund, and as an already expected move.
“We don’t know what the losses are, except when we get the official annual financial reports.” The IMF is interested in this because it has arrangements with Serbia and wants our country to be able to return borrowed funds. If it notices that certain entities in Serbia threaten the ability to repay loans, they demand that governments intervene in that field. This is precisely why pressure was exerted on the Government of Serbia, which agreed to raise the prices of energy products”.
Gavrilović suggests that, when it comes to gas, the situation is quite similar to EPS, with the fact that this field is less transparent than the electricity industry, because the increase can be calculated due to known supplier prices.
“At Srbijagas, we have a great lack of transparency because we do not have publicly available information on the purchase prices from Gazprom for the quantities that are consumed annually in Serbia.” It is known that we have preferential prices for the purchase of natural gas due to our relationship with the Russian Federation, for about 60 percent of our needs during the winter, and we supply the other 40 percent according to the formulas that exist between the countries.
However, it is never said or written exactly which numbers are in question. Roughly, during the previous heating season, Serbia procured most of the gas at prices that are on average below 1,000 dollars for one standardized cubic meter, which was favorable,” underlines the energy expert.
Nevertheless, the director of “Srbijagas” said that the current price at which Serbia procures gas is around 300 dollars for 1,000 cubic meters on the reference European exchange. “At the national level, the calculation is not feasible, because they monopolize the prices – and they are the only ones who have data on this,” says Gavrilović.
Referring to the justification of the price increase, Papović, like Gavrilović, points out that the public is not aware of the contracts under which procurement is carried out, but that it is certain that the costs of transportation, and that the contracted price itself is not the one that reaches the consumer.
We remind you that in 2022, Serbia signed a three-year contract on the supply of gas from Russia. Considering that it was not available to the public, according to the statements of Serbian officials, the agreed prices should range between 310 and 420 dollars for 1,000 cubic meters. At the time of signing the contract, the price of gas on the Dutch TTF exchange was around 70 euros per megawatt-hour, while the current price is around 40 euros per megawatt-hour.
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