Romania will maintain natural gas prices for households unchanged by the end of
June and will draft a new calendar for liberalisation of prices in the 2015-2021
period, the state energy department said.
The new calendar will take into
account the downward trend of hydrocarbon prices in the region and the longer
period for alignment of prices which has been agreed with the international
financial institutions, the energy department said in a statement on
Wednesday.
The liberalisation of gas prices for non-household users will
take place on January 1, as agreed with the European Commission.Thermal heating
producers will continue to pay the same price as households, the statement
added.
The announcement came after a meeting between the head of the
energy department with representatives of theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF),
the World Bank and the European Commission, which are in Bucharest until
December 10 to discuss the country's draft budget for 2015 with Romanian
authorities.
Commenting on the news, Raiffeisen Bank Romania said in a
note to investors on Thursday: "[...] we view the news as positive [for the
share price of Romgaz and OMV Petrom] as it seems that the next price increase
would come sooner than expected."
Blue-chip natural gas producer Romgaz
[BSE:SNG] has a stronger exposure to households and thermal heating producers,
about55% over the first nine months of 2014,versus around 25% for
theblue-chip oil and gas group OMV Petrom [BSE:SNP],so it would be most
affected by the news, Raiffaisen Bank added.