REUTERS
The formula is no longer used after the introduction of a new electricity market from July 1, 2019.
Fifth president of Ukraine, leader of the European Solidarity Party Petro Poroshenko says he is not involved in the formation and setting of the so-called "Rotterdam Plus" formula, which introduced higher prices of coal based on which power rates were estimated.
"I have nothing to do with this formula. I had never seen it before it was introduced and presented to the market, before it was offered for public discussion," Poroshenko said on TV.
Read alsoRotterdam Plus case: Akhmetov's DTEK responds to NABU accusations
According to him, had power rates really been affected by the "Rotterdam Plus" formula, then they would have declined after it was cancelled.
"No formula had existed before and the price had been set manually. And I think any formula is better than manual, non-transparent price setting ... And what we see now: 'Rotterdam' has been canceled, and it turned out that if there had been an artificially high price, it would have fallen by 10% or 15% due to market-oriented pricing. But after the cancellation of 'Rotterdam,' the price has only increased," the ex-president explained.
UNIAN memo. The the National Anti-corruption Bureau (NABU) in 2017 launched criminal proceedings targeting the former chairman and members of Ukraine's National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission (NEURC), who, in the interests of thermal power operators, while forming the wholesale market price, unreasonably included in it a formula that overestimates the cost of thermal coal in electricity tariffs (the "Rotterdam Plus" formula).
NABU found that such actions of NEURC had led to the fact that the generating companies that are operators of thermal power plants had received super profits, and electricity consumers had incurred unreasonable losses.
NABU documents mentioned the "Rotterdam Plus" formula, which led to a financially groundless increase in the electricity price at which the state-owned enterprise Energomarket (Energy Market) bought power from generating companies.
On August 8, NABU detectives reported that six people involved in the "Rotterdam Plus" case were suspected of committing actions that resulted in electricity consumers' losses worth UAH 18.9 billion. The formula is no longer used after the introduction of a new electricity market from July 1, 2019.