It is good to know that the international price of natural gas has eliminated the Ukraine-effect and returned to pre-war levels; but what happens to us consumers? The methane bills remain the same as before, and the unpleasant feeling is that the energy companies are accumulating more super-profits…
The fact is that the tariff update does not happen in real time. Until recently, changes were recorded every three months, and that’s still the case with electricity. On the other hand, a new rule was recently introduced for gas, intended to make tariffs more sensitive to changes in international prices: they are updated on a month-by-month basis. On the basis of the new mechanism decided last October, in early February the Energy Authority (Arera) will calculate the January rate, which will be paid in the bill in February. Then will come the economic benefits for consumers.
War Russia Ukraine, today’s news
This, it should be clear, concerns the protected market, ie the tariffs established by the Arera, while the others are regulated by free market contracts – perhaps on a multi-year basis – and depending on the moment they can be more or less convenient than the administered ones. In normal times the difference between tariffs determined by the Authority and market contracts is not great, but when there are violent fluctuations on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (which is the reference throughout Europe) such as those of 2022/2023, on a weekly or daily basis , it is obvious that the adjustments, whether they are quarterly or monthly, always leave an impression of guilty delay.
However, the collapse in methane prices should bring with it a generalized drop in inflation; let’s really hope that there will be a rapid downward adjustment of all prices, which exploded together with those of energy and should now ebb again with the same promptness. A little skepticism is legitimate. We’ll see.