An effort to determine the starting price of natural gas auctions to be staged by DEPA, the Public Gas Corporation – now scheduled to take place on November 14 following a one-month postponement of the previous date – will need to be resolved by the Competition Committee.

The methods being applied by DEPA and RAE, the Regulatory Authority for Energy,  have led to a discrepancy in evaluations made as a result of differing criteria concerning operational costs.

DEPA has set its operational costs at a certain level, transferring these into the auction price levels. RAE disputes certain costs included in the sum by DEPA, and contends that the auction starting prices should be set at lower levels.

RAE disagrees with the inclusion of certain additional payments for DEPA personnel working on the auctions, as well as a number of other expenses not taken into account for previous auctions, into the sum of operational costs.

According to sources, the method applied by RAE to determine the starting price of auctions produces a price reduction of approximately 0.5 to 0.8 euros per megawatt hour.

DEPA will defend its cost-calculating approach at the Competition Committee, requesting the inclusion of what it considers to be the actual costs into the equation for the gas auctions.