EFT Group: Bulgaria Needs Energy Competitiveness Strategy

Bulgaria needs to decide on a strategy for its regional energy exports, senior managers of the UK-owned EFT Group have remarked in Sofia.

The Energy Financing Team (EFT Group), an energy trading company active in 19 European countries, is an exporter of electricity produced in Bulgaria working with the Bulgarian National Electric Company NEK.

The EFT Group organized a business breakfast in Sofia on Monday, which was attended by some of its top managers, including James Nye, CEO; Dr. Svetislav Bulatovic, Group Vice Chairman; David Surtees, Marketing Director.

The company managers have pointed out that while Bulgaria used to be highly competitive on the regional electricity export market, its relative competitiveness has deteriorated over time.

According to the EFT managers, this is largely due to the higher electricity export tax in Bulgaria which was increased to EUR 8.5/MWh in 2009. .

The EFT Group management has also sought to disprove the recent reports in the Bulgarian media that the company was involved in an affair for several hundred million euro, in which it bought electricity from NEK at lower than the market prices, and then sold it in third countries.

The EFT managers identified 12 allegations about their company made in the Bulgarian media, which they refuted one by one by presenting data and technical evidence. These include the claims that the company subsidiary EFT AG got a contract for purchasing power from NEK without a tender, that it had exclusive rights to sell NEK electricity abroad, or that some of its shareholders were Bulgarian citizens.

“The allegations that the EFT has benefited illegally from the electricity purchases from NEK are politically motivated, and most likely come from competing energy interests. We are not the only ones who export electricity from Bulgaria, and our competitors could take advantage of such a situation,” the EFT Group CEO James Nye said.

The managers said there are 15 energy trading companies that are active in Bulgaria’s region so they could not venture a guess which would be the source of the allegations that they had gotten illegal benefits from NEK. They stressed that the reports in the media contain a number of incorrect comparisons and assumptions.

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