Electricity rates to be higher than now, Ukraine warning
In 2007, Ukraine shall be no more exporting its electricity at low and fixed rates as now, so power supply contracts for the next year are going to be concluded by using a new calculation formula, and the rates shall be revised quarterly, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Kliuyev has stated.
In his interview with Kommersant newspaper of Russia, he said the electricity tariff calculation will be based on the following 3 main indicators - electricity prices at foreign markets, electricity transportation cost, and fuel costs for atomic and conventional-fuel power generating stations. According to preliminary estimates, the new rates are going to be 35-40% higher than now.
This year, Belarus is paying for the Ukrainian electricity 2.1 US cents per a kilowatt/hour, Moldova - 2.5 cents, Poland 2.6, and Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Czechia and Hungary - 3.9 cents/kWh.
Yet last spring, the former Ukrainian Minister of Fuel and Energy, Ivan Plachkov, accused UkrInterEnergo of a deliberate under-rating of electricity rates set to foreign customers. According to his information, the Hungarian company of System Consulting bought US$72 million worth of Ukraine-made electricity in 2005, and happily sold that very energy for US$266 million; the Polish company of Zomar imported US$18 million worth of power from Ukraine, and earned US$66 million on selling it; Korlea Company (Slovakia) obtained electricity worth US$7.3 million, selling it to consumers for US$31.5 million. As a result, UkrInterEnergo had short-received some US$270 million.
UkrInterEnergo expects that the new tariff calculation approach should increase the power export revenues by some US$25 million a year.
As has already been reported by Infotag, back in September the Ukrainian side stated it was going to revise the 2006 rate on Moldova up to minimum 3 US cents a kWh. However, Moldovan Minister of Industry and Infrastructure Development Vladimir Antosii hopes the current rate shall remain unchanged until the expiry of the contract in force in May 2007.
In January-June 2006, Ukraine had supplied to Moldova 1.03 billion kWh of electricity - out of 5.48 billion kWh of Ukraine's total exports. The mainland Moldova barely covers one-third of its power needs with the electricity made at its domestic generating facilities, so until 2005, this republic used to obtain over a half of the missing energy from the Moldavskaya Power Plant, which is the Republic of Moldova's largest energy object, but which, alas, is situated on the left Dniester bank.
After over a decade of control by the separatist Transnistrian authorities, in 2005 the Plant was bought by Inter RAO EES of Russia, which offered Moldova to buy electricity at a rate of 4.08 US cents per a kilowatt/hour instead of the previous 3.05 US cents. However, Chisinau then managed to strike a happy bargain with Ukraine, and is now enjoying the above-mentioned tariff of 2.5 US cents. // Infotag
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