The Secretary of Energy, Flavia Royón, announced that from May 1st all subsidies will be eliminated for higher income households. The official explained that this decision means an increase in the cost of electricity of 90%, which results in a 60% increase in the value of the invoices that will be received from June, in the case of Amba invoices.
In the case of the province of Santa Fe, the decision will impact 33% of residential users (category N1), although spokesmen for the Santa Fe state provider clarified that the final calculation will depend on the technical resolution that the Energy Secretariat makes known. The cost of wholesale energy is the input that the EPE pays to Cammesa, to which it adds the transformation and distribution costs of its activity, among others.
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After the presentation at the Idea Energía 2023 Meeting that takes place in Neuquén, Royón pointed out that the implementation of the measure was delayed due to the delay in the registration in the corresponding registry. The elimination of these subsidies to higher-income households was one of the commitments signed in the last review of the agreement with the IMF, with the aim of reducing the fiscal deficit.
“We are only referring to the cost of energy that is the same throughout the country, that energy cost for the high-income sector and those who do not request the subsidy can have an increase of between 90 and 100%,” he explained. Royon. This is the N1 group that is of high income (greater than 520,000 pesos) or those who, even without exceeding that amount, chose not to maintain the subsidy.
In some cases, there were even users who rejected the possibility of maintaining the service when the Central Bank announced that those who registered in the Registry of Access to Energy Subsidies (RASE) were prevented from buying dollars. As of March, segment N1 had processed 5,385,522 requests; in N2: 7,713,311 requests and in N3: 2,818,497.
For those users who are at the medium level, the increase will be around 15% or 50%. “So that people can know, in their ballots it is identified how much the State subsidy is, that is what would be withdrawn as of May 1. In gas it was fixed and the rates are those that were announced at the time and that will be published next week,” he said.
New laws
On the other hand, the secretary announced, before an audience that are actors in the energy sector, that the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, will raise the LNG bill and the green hydrogen bill, just as he anticipated El Litoral in its passage through Santa Fe. The project is one of the objectives that Massa promised to submit to Congress last year, on his first trip to Washington, where he began to spread the idea of Argentina as an energy producer to the world.
In fact, in the morning, in the interview with Marcos Bulgheroni (CEO of Pan American Energy Group) with Sergio Massa, the minister stressed that Argentina will no longer be deficient in energy matters. A concept that Royón later reinforced in another one-on-one with Bulgheroni, when he stressed that in 2024 the energy balance will leave a positive balance of between 8,000 million and 12,000 million dollars.
