By Chryssa Liaggou
Hellenic Petroleum’s (HELPE) electric power plant in Thessaloniki, which was launched recently, will only become viable when a series of measures are implemented, senior officials of the group said yesterday. These measures are a rise in Public Power Corporation’s (PPC) rates to levels that reflect real costs, liberalization of the natural gas market and equal and fair treatment to PPC and its competitors.
PPC rates for the power supplied to the grid are far lower than actual costs, HELPE officials said, and exclude the high cost of pollution. If these were to be passed on to wholesale prices, as will happen with the gradual application of the electric energy transaction codes, then the overall operation costs of PPC’s lignite units would rise, rendering the operation of natural gas units more competitive. HELPE sources forecast a gradual convergence of the real and the marginal operation costs of the system within a decade, with current rates rising by about 20-25 percent.
The second key institutional intervention focuses on regulatory clauses to complete the natural gas market framework, as in its current form it does not allow for an alternative supplier. This requires a single rate of system usage from the fuel’s entry point (at the border) to its consumption (at the unit), the same sources said, with the Development Ministry already moving toward this, too.
The third factor, that of ensuring the equitable treatment of producers, relates to favorable regulations in the tender for the new private 900-megawatt power units: They ensure their owners guaranteed revenues of 70 percent, but this does not apply to the HELPE unit in Thessaloniki.
“We have called on the ministry and the competent authorities for equal treatment. This is what is dictated by the European directive on liberalization, and this is what healthy competition means,” top HELPE officials said. They added that if required, they may resort to legal action against the state to secure the interests of the group’s shareholders.
The same sources consider these problems entirely predictable as well as unavoidable. “These are the teething problems of a market in a phase of restructuring; we believe it is a matter of time for the situation to become to normal,” they said. As for the Thessaloniki unit, they suggested that “we are doing the sector a big favor by paving the way for the other investors, too. This does not mean we ought to get punished for that...”
(Kathimerini, 24/1/06)