The Slovak gas utility Slovensky plynarensky priemysel (SPP) has had a hard time in the past few years in its attempts to increase gas prices for households to reflect current developments. It probably expected this to change under the current government, but so far that has not been the case.
Now, for the umpteenth time this year, it has had its proposals to increase gas prices for households and household heat producers rejected by national regulatory authority URSO. The regulator gave the thumbs down to proposals on formal grounds that they had not been approved by the company’s General Meeting, a requisite based on a purpose-built law under the former government so that it could stop the SPP Board of Directors from doing as it pleased with prices.
Head of the regulator, Miroslav Luptak, said that the regulator had also examined the proposals and found the calculations to be excessively high, unsubstantiated and unacceptable. The regulator will now proceed to set prices by its own calculations and forecasts, which Luptak believes will then acquire force on 1 January 2010.