Industry: Gas Price Hike to Hamper Bulgarian Economic Recovery

The hike in gas prices is expected to hit hard at Bulgarian chemical production and export.

The record steep increase in the price of natural gas mandated starting Thursday will be detrimental to Bulgarian economy and exports, according to industry representatives.

Monday the State Commission for Energy and Water regulation officially announced a raise of 24.63% in the price of natural gas starting July 1.

The chair of the Federation of Industrial Energy Consumers in Bulgaria Konstantin Stamenov commented to Mediapool.bg that “new energy prices postpone the country's recovery from the crisis”.

Stamenov expressed dismay and bafflement at the notoriously opaque Bulgarian price-formation for energy sources, commenting that last year prices were much lower (around 3/5 of prices starting July 1) given higher demand. “Apparently Bulgaria has drawn extremely unfavorable contracts with Russia,” added he. The latter is a perception shared by many in the country.

Chair of the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce Bozhidar Danev also stated that the effect of the price hike will be negative – not only for metallurgy, chemical and engineering industries, which are excepted to be hit most hard, but also for smaller enterprises that run on gas such as bakeries and greenhouses.

Both Stamenov and Danev are of the opinion that the increase in price will have serious adverse effects for Bulgarian exports.

Heating utilities also forecasted losses from raised prices in heating as a result of the gas hike, and a respective drop down of number of consumers.

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