January 10 (SeeNews) - Bosnia's BH Gas is seeking a 31% increase of the price at which is selling natural gas to distributors due to higher prices of Russian gas imports, the company said.
In early December, the gas supplier asked the energy ministry of Bosnia's Federation entity to endorse an increase of wholesale gas price to 650 marka ($382.9/332.3 euro) per 1000 cubic meters from January 1, from 495 marka, the company owned by the government of Bosnia's Federation said in a press release earlier this week.
The increase was requested on the basis of the rise in the prices of crude oil and oil products in 2018, and the related increase in the prices of gas imports from Russia, BH Gas said. Even though the price of Russian gas imports rose by as much as 100% between 2016 and 2018, BH-Gas has maintained its wholesale price on the domestic market at 495 marka per 1000 cubic meters over the past 18 months in cooperation with the energy ministry of the Federation, it said.
As BH-Gas began to face enormous losses due to the widening gap between import prices and its wholesale price, which reached 80,000 marka per day in January, its supervisory board decided to ask the energy ministry to approve an increase of the price at which the company sells gas to distribution companies.
BH-Gas also said that the wholesale price of natural gas in Bosnia's other entity, the Serb Republic, has increased from 435 marka to 654 marka per 1000 cubic meters during the past six months - a rise of 50%.
The Serb Republic and the Federation are the two autonomous entities that form Bosnia and Herzegovina.
(1 euro = 1.95583 marka)