Gazprom ready with proposals to combat gas nonpayment - Miller
GORKI. Oct 29 (Interfax) - Gazprom has drawn up a number of proposals aimed at resolving the problem of nonpayment for gas deliveries, including those to utilities.
At a government meeting on strengthening payment discipline for gas deliveries, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller proposed legislative improvements that would impose limitations on gas supplies to companies with delinquent payment records, without harming consumers making good-faith payment for gas.
"We are asking the Energy Ministry to work up the mechanisms for limitations for bad-faith consumers of gas without harming household consumers making good faith payments for services. There is a need for mechanisms that not only guarantee gas deliveries, but guarantee payment for them," Miller said.
Gazprom has already made its proposals to the Energy Ministry on simplified procedures for limiting gas supplies to delinquent customers. They provide for shortening the delinquency period - to 20 days from 30 currently - after which sanctions can be applied and increasing the number of those sanctions to three from two currently.
The draft resolution has already been agreed with the various government ministries and agencies, Miller said. At Tuesday's meeting, Miller had requested that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev speed up the work.
Gazprom often sees the situation where one Russian region pays for gas supplies on time and in full, while large arrears accumulate in another. Often the two regions are quite similar in terms of geographical, economic and social terms.
The gas payment situation is worst in Bryansk, Vladimir, Moscow, Oryol, Tver, Ryazan, Yaroslavl, Volgograd, Astrakhan, Kirov and Penza regions, in Krasnodar territory, and in Dagestan, North Ossetia, and Kabardino-Balkaria. They account for 72% of nationwide arrears for gas payments at the utilities: 20.4 billion rubles out of 28.3 billion rubles.
The proposals include measures to create special settlement centers and separate out payments for gas, which would make it make it possible to resolve the problem associated with intermediaries. Oftentimes household consumers pay for gas on time, but the sales companies that receive those payments pass them on after a lengthy delay or not at all.
Gazprom also proposes settling the issue of companies that lease equipment and property, including municipalities, that themselves have no property or other, liquid assets. "In order to resolve this problem, changes need to be made at a higher level to current law and the operations of heat supplier operations need to be regulated, specifically by establishing subsidiary liability between the renter of the heat supply systems and the owner. Boiler renters should be required to insure their liabilities, secure bank guarantees on gas deliveries and guarantees from the property owner, and meet net asset requirements, so that the value of assets are appropriate to the gas supply requirement, to provide for the possibility of concluding a gas supply agreement exclusively with the property owner," Miller said.
Gazprom proposes conducting an analysis of tariffs on heat at the regional and municipal level. "Establishment of economically unjustified tariffs at the regional and municipal levels also fosters formation of arrears. Those administrations need to audit the tariffs on heat supplies. In those cases where the tariff in force does not correspond to actual costs, I believe it appropriate to require regional budgets to make good the losses of heat supply organizations," Miller said.