Summer 2004

During the past years, deep changes in natural gas sector have been accomplished, at their achievement contributing all the involved factors, including ANRGN, a public institution of national interest.  By accomplishing its attributions, ANRGN has had a key contribution in creating a legislative framework in order to ensure the function of natural gas sector and market on efficiency, safety, competitive and transparent terms.

The legal framework necessary to develop the activities in the natural gas sector is ensured by the secondary legislation issued by ANRGN, the most important and recent documents referring to:

- Decision of the President of ANRGN no. 1076/December 18, 2003 (MONITORUL OFICIAL 947/December 23, 2003) regarding the establishment of the opening degree of natural gas internal market at 40%
- Decision of the President of ANRGN no. 1078/December 18, 2003 (MONITORUL OFICIAL 40/January 19, 2004) regarding the approval for "Criteria and methods for approving prices and establishing regulated tariffs in natural gas sector"
- Decision of the President of ANRGN no. 331/March 10, 2004 (MONITORUL OFICIAL 225/March 15, 2004) regarding the approval of the Centralized list of natural gas eligible customers for the year 2004.08.11.
- Decision of the President of ANRGN no. 620/2004 (MONITORUL OFICIAL 416/May 10, 2004) regarding Norms for avoiding the abuse of a dominant position of internal natural gas market
- Decision of the President of ANRGN no. 824/June 9, 2004 (MONITORUL OFICIAL 562/June 24, 2004) regarding the approval of the Regulation on regulated access to natural gas underground storage facilities
- Decision of the President of ANRGN no. 825/June 9, 2004 (MONITORUL OFICIAL 562/June 24, 2004) regarding the approval of the Technical Code of Liquefied Natural Gas

The provision of the Directive 2003/55/CE as well as the indications from the Notes regarding the implementation of the Directive 2003/55/CE were considered when these documents were issued.

ANRGN also elaborated:

- The draft of Gas Law, which established the legal framework necessary to develop specifies activities in natural gas sector. The draft was approved in the Government meeting on May, 14 2004, was adopted by the Romanian Parliament on June 29, 2004 and was submitted to the President of Romania to be promulgated on July 1, 2004.08.11. Drafts for regulations on third party access to natural gas transmission and distribution systems, which will be approved by government decisions.

At the initiative of the European Commission, ANRGN participated, for the first time, at the "Athens Process" meant to create a regional energy market in South East Europe by 2005 and to progressively ensure its integration into the European Community's Internal Energy Market.

Also, ANRGN become an observer at the European Regulators Group for Electricity and Gas. Experts from ANRGN are actively involved in the Task Force Groups dedicated to Storage, Entry-Exit and Cross-border transport, having important contributions to the development of draft documents in these fields.

Starting with September 2003, the differentiation of the final prices between household customers and non-household customers connected to distribution systems has been accomplished for the first time, the most part of cross subsidies between these categories of customers being eliminated. Regulated final prices of natural gas have been successively increased, justified by:

- The increase of purchasing price for imported natural gas and its share in the total consumption
- The necessity of gradual alignment of wellhead price to the import one, within the context of liberalizing the internal natural gas market and of integration into the single European natural gas market.

For natural gas transmission and underground storage activities a "revenue-cap" type methodology shall be applied, respectively a "price-cap" type methodology for distribution and regulated supply activity.
Starting with April 1, 2004, the tariffs for natural gas underground storage have come into force, established for each operator and facility, calculated according to the new methodology, having three components:

- Fix component for capacity reservation
- Variable component for injection of natural gas into facilities
- Variable component for extraction of natural gas from facilities
For Starting with July 1, 2004, the tariffs for natural gas the year 2004, the natural gas transmission, calculated according to the new methodology, have come into force. The tariff has two components:
- Fix component for capacity reservation
- Variable component for transported volumes of natural gas
During the second ERRA-CEU Summer School on July 26-30 2004, you had the opportunity to learn more about Gas Network and Product Pricing from ANRGN's representative.
ANRGN will be fully opened to constructive dialogue, exchange of information and cooperation with ERRA members, NARUC and USAID representatives, or anyone who would like to find out more about ANRGN's activity in particular or Romanian natural gas sector, in general.

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