NOVATEK demands to raise tariffs in the Chelyabinsk region. The supplier wants to raise billions of rubles

The company announced the growth of debts for the resource

The Chelyabinsk branch of NOVATEK, Leonid Mikhelson, announced the need to raise tariffs for heat supply in the region, which creates risks of increasing the cost of services for all consumers, including the population. The company explains its initiative by the fact that resource-supplying organizations have accumulated multibillion-dollar debts for the supplied gas. According to industry representatives, the management of the gas company has allegedly “began to put pressure on debtors with a demand to apply to the regional regulator for an increase in tariffs.” The Ministry of Tariff Regulation, however, considers the statements of the management of NOVATEK-Chelyabinsk incorrect and indicates that the tariffs are “economically justified and take into account the needs of organizations.” Experts also note that the increase in fees can cause serious socio-economic consequences, which are highly undesirable for the authorities. Market participants see the basis of the problem not in low tariffs, but in the inefficiency of municipal management of communal assets. In such a situation, debts do not directly depend on the volume of the tariff menu, which, as industry experts say, “NOVATEK knows, but prefers to speculate for easier access to resources, which, however, poses a threat of growing conflicts in the region.”

The government of the Chelyabinsk region in 2022 will allocate 800 million rubles from the budget in the form of a subsidy to municipalities to pay off debts for fuel and energy resources.

“This is an annual practice before the heating season, which is aimed at supporting inefficient municipal enterprises. They can use the allocated money to fulfill obligations to suppliers of energy resources: gas and electricity. This will allow them to enter the heating season without serious problems. However, in order to reduce budget expenditures, the heads of troubled municipalities should work to improve efficiency, with which there are obvious problems in some territories,” the source in the regional government argues.

During a meeting in the prosecutor’s office of the Chelyabinsk region, the gas supplier OOO NOVATEK-Chelyabinsk stated that the debt for the delivered resource in the region had reached 2.6 billion rubles. The main volume of unfulfilled obligations fell on 6 out of 43 municipalities: Zlatoust, Miass, Verkhneufaleisky urban districts, Katav-Ivanovsky, Satkinsky, Yemanzhelinsky municipal districts. As the main reason for the formation of a large debt, representatives of the gas company called the low tariffs set for MUPs.

“The region has an extremely unfavorable investment climate in the heat supply sector. 45% of TSOs have low tariffs for thermal energy, which leads to insufficient funds to pay for gas, despite the fact that at a meeting in the government of the region, the Ministry of Tariff Regulation and Energy was repeatedly told not to reduce the tariff. As a result, 18 TCOs are in bankruptcy proceedings, another 26 TCOs are on the verge of bankruptcy,” NOVATEK-Chelyabinsk believes.

However, the Ministry of Tariff Regulation considers such statements to be incorrect and indicates that tariffs are set at an economically justified level, and the current legislation provides for not only a reasonable increase in indicators, but also their reduction.

It should be noted that information about the lack of growth or a decrease of 45% of tariffs (in quantitative terms, and not in terms of revenue, – ed. note) was reported by the minister at a meeting in the government a year ago, as well as in the Legislative Assembly of the Chelyabinsk region with reference to the reasons for such decisions. Among them, the Ministry of Tariff singled out the use of operating efficiency indices in long-term tariff regulation. The matter is that according to the requirement of the legislation, the enterprises should reduce operating expenses. The second point is the actual increase in productive supply, which allows heat suppliers to keep their revenues while reducing tariffs. Thirdly, the regulator took into account the results of previous years.

“The share of these tariffs in the total required gross revenue of heat supply organizations in the Chelyabinsk region as a whole is 27.7%, which does not generally determine the impact on the issues of payment discipline and provides for the preservation of mandatory costs, including the normative volumes of energy resources, wages. Also, this information is not related to information about organizations that are in the process of bankruptcy. At the same time, the CEO of NOVATEK-Chelyabinsk, Vadim Romasenko, as a member of the Legislative Assembly, had information about the objective grounds for approving tariffs,” the Ministry of Tariff said.

According to the department, the debt for gas in the amount of 2.6 billion rubles has developed over several years and amounts to only 6% of the annual required gross revenue of all regulated organizations in the Chelyabinsk region that use gas as fuel. This, in turn, as experts say, indicates the absence of a direct connection between the tariff and consumer obligations.

An interlocutor in one of the heat supply organizations in the region noted that the tariff component in itself does not play a key role in the formation of debts to NOVATEK-Chelyabinsk.

“The main claim of the gas workers is the low tariff. Therefore, NOVATEK, as they say, incites debtors to apply to the regulator for a tariff increase. But this approach is very primitive, since the problem of non-payments is usually hidden within the housing and communal services enterprises themselves. As a rule, these are inefficient management, an irrational heat supply scheme, leaks, etc. Often these are municipal assets and the powers to provide resources lie with the heads. When setting the tariff, the Ministry of Tariff is guided by the documents provided by the enterprises themselves, and they cannot confirm the validity of the price increase. In addition, at current tariffs, we see successful examples of doing business, for example, Chelyaboblkommunenergo,” the industry representative summed up.