“It’s possible OPCOM will launch a natural gas platform in April,” ANRE’s president Nicolae Havrilet told a ZF power summit in Bucharest.
Romanian state-run natural gas producers will have to sell via open auction 45% of the quantities extracted in 2013, according to an order ANRE issued earlier this year.
OPCOM’s plan to launch a natural gas platform has been repeatedly criticized by representatives of the Romanian commodities exchange BRM, which already hosts gas transactions.
Havrilet said Romania’s newly announced tax on natural monopoly should be levied only on companies, with no costs whatsoever for household consumers.
He said that Romania could, in theory, experience a period of social unrest same as Bulgaria, because “no one likes to see the cost of their utility bills go up.”