FAS planning to resolve issue with long-term tariffs for Rosseti by year-end
GORKI. Aug 30 (Interfax) - Grid operator Rosseti may receive a new long-term tariff by the end of the year, the head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) Igor Artemyev told journalists.
"We have made an announcement that in the coming months, probably by the end of the year, we will issue the 10-year tariff to Rosseti," he said.
Rosseti has repeatedly spoken about the difficulties of paying dividends under existing tariffs. The company is hoping for the introduction of long-term tariffs to provide certainty and a source of profits for dividends.
The grid holding has asked for a 10 year duration on multiple occasions. It had been previously envisaged that the tariff formula would kept on the "inflation minus" principle under which grid tariffs have been indexed in recent years. The possibility of long-term tariffs "should be a key condition for the regulatory agreement, concluded between grid operators and the relevant Russian regions," Rosseti said.
Introducing reference costs along the lines of the energy sales sector was proposed as an alternative to the regulatory agreement.
Long-term tariffs imply the conclusion of regulatory agreements by Rosseti subsidiaries with regions. They will allow tariffs to be set for a specific duration.