Money for free gasification in Russia offered to take from consumers

Social gasification in Russia, which will become free for households of citizens, will have to be paid for by large gas consumers – these are enterprises, energy facilities and other legal entities. The corresponding project of the “gas maneuver” was developed by the Presidium of the State Council, Vedomosti writes.

The document, prepared for sending to the Kremlin, offers three ways to shift funding to companies. At the same time, officials believe that the costs will not become too burdensome for them.

One of the options is the accelerated indexation of wholesale gas prices. Along with it, the tariffs for pumping through the Gazprom infrastructure for independent suppliers should increase, which will not allow them to receive additional income.

The second method involves the introduction of an excise tax or a special wholesale surcharge on gas, as in the case of road funds or excise taxes on motor fuel. When selling gas to the population, excise tax will not be applied.

The authors of the report called the increase in Gazprom’s investment program the last basic option. In this case, it will be necessary to come to terms with the drop in budget revenues, because either the company will have to be given tax breaks, or Gazprom itself will be forced to cut dividends. In addition, it is possible to carry out an additional issue of the company’s shares with an increase in the state’s share, which may affect its attractiveness for investors.

A federal official, whose name is not given in the material, said that the proposals have already been sent to President Vladimir Putin. At the same time, he stressed that the introduction of the excise tax on gas and the increase in tariffs were not included in the final version. According to him, none of the financing options involves attracting funds from citizens.

In February, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak indicated that an additional 500-600 billion rubles should be found for the program for connecting households to gas until 2030. These funds will allow to bring the level of gasification from 71.4 percent, as at the beginning of 2021, to 82.9 percent in 2030 (the maximum possible level when using pipelines). Currently, the connection costs individuals 45-280 thousand rubles.

In November last year, it was reported that officials could not find funds to gasify Russia. Funding remained the main problem of the project developers, there was a shortage of about a trillion rubles. In total, the program was estimated at two trillion rubles.

/Media reports.