Natural gas will fall by more than 10% for all consumers from July 1 – Jornal de Negócios – Portugal

The Regulatory Authority for Energy Services (ERSE) confirmed the decline of 13.3% in natural gas prices on the regulated market from 1 July.

Prices will thus down 13.3% for households and small businesses. The gas in the small industry will be reduced by 14.6%, while the major industry is reduced by 20.2%, confirmed ERSE this Wednesday, June 15th.

This decline in prices will take place in the regulated market of natural gas, which covers about 400,000 customers in Portugal. In turn, the free market already has one million consumers, representing 84% of total annualized consumption of gas.

In the liberalized market, there were commercial proposals at a discount of 9% over the regulated market in the first quarter of this year.

it is noteworthy that the liberalized market customers will also suffer a reduction in natural gas prices by 11.4%. Because the network access fees for domestic and small business consumers will go down 19.1%, which will cause such a drop of 11.4% in the making of families.

“These rates are directly to suppliers that transmit to final consumers in the supply bills. the reduction presented will be reflected in the rates charged by suppliers operating in the liberalized market, “says the regulator.

the reduction was confirmed by the Board of energy regulator Administration, after the approval given by the Tariff Council of the regulator, an advisory body made up of energy companies, consumer associations and industry.

natural gas will go down 18% in the year

this will be the second descent of natural gas this year. The first took place on 1 May when prices fell 6.1% for households, 7.5% for small industry and 10.2% for industrial.

So far this year, rates have fallen 18.6% for domestic and small business customers, 21.1% for small industry and 28.4% for industrial.

But why is that natural gas prices down ? One reason was the oil price decline in the second half of 2015 which is reflected in the current acquisition cost of natural gas.

Also the stabilization in demand for natural gas, especially at high pressure level “also had a positive effect in tariff terms,” ​​explains ERSE, “particularly in the recovery by tariffs of access infrastructure costs, which are mainly fixed.”

the governor points out, however, reduction in infrastructure costs “both in terms of operating costs and in terms of investment costs.” This reduction stems from regulatory changes that affected the operating costs, such as the revision of income levels allowed companies and efficiency goals.