PRESS: Antitrust may not rise Gazprom’s pumping tariff in 2018

MOSCOW, Sep 28 (PRIME) -- The Federal Antimonopoly Service may not increase a natural gas pumping tariff for independent gas producers via pipelines of gas giant Gazprom in 2018, the service’s Head Igor Artemyev said in an interview to Kommersant business daily published on Thursday.

The service did not decide to increase the tariff in 2016, and initially planned to raise it by 3.9% from July 1, 2017, but failed to approve the decision on June 1 as the Economic Development Ministry was against it.

“Firstly, independent producers did not want the increase saying that Gazprom has too many circumstantial conditions due to its monopolistic position, like pumping its own gas at lower tariffs. The company has no separate balance sheet, we cannot understand the situation fully. The monopolistic position and wastefulness of Gazprom itself allow us to say that,” Artemyev said.

“(All companies) would be put in unfair conditions if the tariff were raised. In other words, everyone knows that Gazprom does no serious optimization, it spends too much, and creates internal preferences for the company.

“So, the majority of authorities that vote within the tariff service were absolutely against the increase, and we agreed with the position in the end, so the tariff was not raised for a second time. Moreover, we are guided by the netback gas price, which is rather dramatic sometimes due to changes in oil prices.

“So, we will look at the oil price in May, we will discuss it with other authorities and we will decide whether we should do it. I do not rule out that the tariff may again remain flat (in 2018).”

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