The revision of gas prices every three months is part of a regulation by the Energy Services Regulatory Authority (ERSE), approved on 28 April by the Board of Directors and published on 8 May in Diário da República, which comes into force on the day following the its publication and takes effect from the date of its approval.

“The strong volatility in oil prices, with an effect on the costs of acquiring natural gas, resulting from different situations, including the current pandemic Sar-Cov-2 and the covid-19 disease, highlight the need to implement rapid review mechanisms of acquisition costs of natural gas for tariff purpose ”, explains ERSE in the diploma, which approves the first amendment to the Tariff Regulations for the Natural Gas Sector.

This regulatory change creates a mechanism for adjusting the energy tariff, identical to that already existing in the electricity sector, which provides for quarterly monitoring of the cost of acquisition of natural gas related to the wholesale last resort trader (CURg).

For this purpose, ERSE's forecasts for the cost of natural gas in the current gas year, resulting from this monitoring, are compared with those that supported the regulated tariffs in force.

“Whenever the difference between the two values ??is higher than the threshold established under the Tariff Regulation for the natural gas sector, an update of the energy tariff will occur”, says ERSE in the regulation published today.

The energy services regulator explains that this mechanism allows it to “react on the value of the energy tariff”, which integrates the transitional tariffs for sale to final customers, “aiming to adjust” the tariffs of the final customers within previously established parameters.

This adjustment of tariffs, he adds, will be done “without harming the foundations of the approved tariff decision, ensuring the maximization of well-being and the creation of adequate signs” to the market through the repercussion of energy costs more immediately.

The tariff regulation for natural gas, now modified, changes the setting of tariffs, introducing a new rule that provides that “ERSE approves the update of energy tariffs (…) at least fifteen days before its effects take effect , from the date of its approval, proceeding to its publication” in the Diário da República.