gas companies will adjust rates from next month/arch.
Starting in February, gas users will once again suffer increases that in the Region could have a final impact of up to almost 50%. This arises from the virtual public hearing held yesterday to discuss the supply rate increase. There, before the National Gas Regulatory Entity (Enargas), the distribution and transport companies (Camuzzi, Metrogas, Naturgy, TGN and TGS) asked to increase their income between 135 and 283%, emphasizing the rate freezes that occurred during Kirchnerism and warning that in recent years the Government authorized increases well below inflation.
For this reason, the companies demanded to implement a quarterly adjustment scheme starting in February that takes as parameters the evolution of prices and the increases in the costs of the sector.
As the final gas tariff is made up of four items (the price of gas at the wellhead, transportation, distribution and taxes), the impact between what the distributors requested and what the user will end up paying will depend on each zone. . Those values could range from 21% to 77.5% across the country.
In the case of Camuzzi Gas Pampeana, which distributes in the Region, the bill of an average residential user would go from $4,892 to $6,105 per month (24.8% increase) and that of a level 2 user (without social rate) of $2,444 to $3,657 (49.6%).
This despite the fact that in yesterday’s hearing, Alejandro Pérez, who spoke on behalf of Camuzzi Gas Pampeana and Camuzzi Gas Sur, claimed increases of 196% and 283%, respectively.
“These increases are to cover the minimum costs of operation and maintenance, and to make investments that cannot be postponed for the provision of the service in safe conditions. They do not include profitability for the company and imply the premise that starts in February. They are designed so that the capital debt that we have with the producers does not increase. Any percentage less than this will go against it,” said the executive, while noting the financial cost that arises from the delay in State payments for the compensation of the social fee and public welfare entities. .
“The company has not received the social rate subsidy for a year, for which the State owes $7.3 billion,” questioned the Camuzzi manager.
In this sense, each of the companies has been realizing the rate delay in recent years. They pointed out that while the variation in wages and general prices was between 296% and 315%, the current government authorized increases of between 60% and 76%.
“Of the last 30 years since the licenses were granted, the regulatory framework was in force for only 12, while in the other 18 years it was suspended due to emergency laws,” said Rubén De Muria, from the transport company TGS, who asked since February a transitory adequacy of 135%.
Most of the suspension of this regulatory framework occurred between 2002 and 2016, with the governments of Néstor and Cristina Kirchner, who kept the rates frozen until 2013 and then approved discretionary increases.
In 2017, Mauricio Macri sought to regularize the situation by establishing a Comprehensive Tariff Review (RTI), but the following year the same government modified the adjustment index and in October 2019, on election eve, deferred the increases.
Already in December 2020, when Alberto Fernández took office, he suspended the review promoted by Macri and the rates returned to the freezer. Between 2021 and 2022, the Government authorized a 60% increase in the gas transportation rate and two annual increases of 26% and 40% to carriers. Well below inflation, which only last year touched 100%.
Now, the Government is facing the claim of the gas companies and the need to move forward on an issue that has always bothered Kirchnerism: approving larger increases in rates (which today would represent 40% of the real cost) to reduce subsidies and avoid the expansion of spending to comply with the IMF. But also to increase the income of the companies and that these, unable to cover costs, are not financed with money from the State. A whole crossroads in the election year.
