Photo from UNIAN
Naftogaz fixed the guaranteed wholesale price for January-April 2020 at UAH 5,500 (US$234) per 1,000 cubic meters.
Executive Director of NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine Yuriy Vitrenko says prices of natural gas for households in Ukraine could fall from January 1, 2020, if domestic gas production and energy efficiency are increased.
Read alsoUkraine in Nov pays US$177.38 per 1,000 cubic meters of imported gas
"If [the country's gas] output and the level of energy efficiency were increased, the gas price would not have risen, but would have fallen," he wrote on Facebook on December 14.
Vitrenko added that Ukraine in 2020 could export gas, rather than import. Therefore, the market price of gas would be much lower.
"And the issue of gas prices could no longer be used for political manipulation. That's how we pay for incompetence and corruption," he wrote.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Naftogaz fixed the guaranteed wholesale price for January-April 2020 at UAH 5,500 (US$234) per 1,000 cubic meters (excluding VAT, transportation costs, regional gas companies' margins), which will safeguard household consumers against a sharp rise in gas prices that could occur in the first quarter of 2020 (Q1).
The price set for Q1 is 12% down from the regulated price at which Naftogaz sold gas to consumers under public service obligations (PSOs) in January-April 2019 (UAH 6,236/US$265 per 1,000 cubic meters), but 28% up from the price set in December 2019 (UAH 4,277/US$182 per 1,000 cubic meters).