The CNMC has published the drafts of circulars, among which is the methodology for calculating rates of financial compensation of electricity and gas networks, an expected and necessary circular to adapt the regulations. The first two circulars, balance and access, They will boost the commercialization of gas and its repercussion will promote a greater use of infrastructures and a greater commercial competitiveness that will result in a more competitive price for the industrial consumer. It remains to be published regarding the methodology for calculation of regasification, transport and distribution tolls.
The aforementioned Circular updates the financial remuneration of networks towards a reasonable profitability, aligning with European remunerations and models. The tolls paid by an industrial person are used to defray the cost of the gas system and this update towards a reasonable profitability is an additional step to recover harmonized tolls in line with the Europeans.
One of the causes of the serious differential of gas costs for Spanish industry lies in the tolls for the use of gas infrastructures and is a direct consequence of the current model -which dates from 2001-, which defines the remuneration of the companies that carry out the regulated activities and the income that comes from consumers, far from the models of other countries of the European Union in structure and price. The revision proposed by the CNMC is necessary since the current remuneration that is assigned to regulated activities means that the value of tolls for the use of infrastructures is significantly higher than that existing in the countries in our environment with which Spanish industries compete
In Spain, the industry is the base of the gas system, it accounts for 62% of the total national gas consumption, with an invoice that rises every year to 4,700 million euros. The competitiveness of Spanish gas has progressively worsened for industrial consumers with prices 20 and 25% higher than that of its European competitors. In regulated costs, tolls are 45% higher in Spain than the European average: Spanish industrialists pay double the French, triple the British and, in some cases, up to six times what the Germans.
The tolls that support the Spanish industrial suppose a bleeding highly penalizing differential, which undermines competitiveness and directly affects the profitability of sectors such as paper, steel, ceramics, cogeneration, chemicals, glass, refining … and others whose productive activities are gas intensive. The circulars of the CNMC will affect the cost paid by the gas to the industrial consumer, forming a new regulatory framework that will normalize tolls that undermine the competitiveness of hundreds of Spanish industries.
GasINDUSTRIAL It has promoted the union of eleven sectoral associations seriously affected, which support the CNMC and demand the resolution of the problem now that the new regulatory framework is being designed. With GasINDUSTRIAL they allied themselves: ACOGEN, co-generation industries; ANFEVI, glass; ANFFECC, Spanish producers of frits, enamels and ceramic colors; ASPAPEL, pulp, paper and cardboard manufacturers; AOP, oil products operators; ASCER, ceramics; INTERTEXTIL SPANISH COUNCIL, textile; CONFEVICEX, glass and ceramics; FEIQUE, chemical; and UNESID, steel industry. The associations will work together to collaborate with the CNMC making visible the importance of the cost of gas in the competitiveness of its activities.
For these industries, gas is strategic and comes to represent 60% of its energy cost of production, which determines its competitiveness, especially as it is mainly exporting sectors. The gas tolls determine their final cost and, being a strategic cost, they really suppose a brake on the industrial development of the country. This competitive disadvantage for hundreds of Spanish industrialists is a real breakdown and a brake on the economic activity of the country as a whole.