Hearings: even if charges increase, the Government will not reduce subsidies

The public hearing to decide on increasing gas rates did not answer the question what the energy sector is doing: how the Minister of the Economy, Martín Guzmán, low subsidies on tickets?

Undersecretary of Hydrocarbons, Maggie Videla, spoke on behalf of the Government. He warned that social rate beneficiaries would not have an increase in their fees, while most clients will pay an additional 20%. That’s above 20% from March.

It does not specify what will be the increase that will reach the clients to which the “segmentation” will be applied, which is the remove subsidies.

The State covers 75% of the cost of gas on ballots that reach homes and businesses. Meaning an annual expenditure of $ 275,000 million. But that number should go down.

A 20% increase in the price of gas that consumers will pay will lead to a reduction, although it is not known how much. The Treasury will continue to pay more than two-thirds of the costs of the system.

The answer to the question of specialists may be when knowing the details of segmentation. It is assumed to determine who the customers will pay the “total cost” of the gas.

Your charges will multiply by three or four. A $ 2,000 ticket during the winter will go in the range between $ 8,000 and $ 10,000, if the Government is encouraged to remove all subsidies.

Gas subsidies will represent 0.4% of GDP in 2021. They are approximately $ 200 billion. The projections for this year look complicated. There has been an increase in the prices of all energy products, And that includes gas. Between May and September, the country imported foreign gas.

hearing by light

This Wednesday is the turn of the light ticket. The proposed increase would be 38%according to the Undersecretary of Electric Power, who made reports for the public hearing but will not participate. Closer to Guzmán they see a recomposition of less than 20%.

The National State also contributes nearly three -quarters of the cost of electricity to Buenos Aires and suburbs. in the provinces, the governors are the ones who authorize the distribution rates of electricity. However, if faced with a wholesale cost increase, companies are likely to pass it on to their customers.

The undersecretary of Electric Power, Federico Basualdo, met with governors from various provinces to inaugurate the works. Everything indicates that the The issue of rate was also touched upon in these dialogues.

The Secretary of Energy, Darío Martínez, has the final word on the matter. He was not in the light crowdnor will he attend the segmentation, which will take place on Thursday.

Argentina will import gas worth US $ 1,000 million in 2021. If it needs the same amount of foreign energy, now it must allocate between US $ 5,000 million and US $ 7,000 million, due to current international LNG prices.

In the winter months, when foreign gas is the most used, the gas cost subsidy on the bill is 85%. That won’t change much with the increase 20% on invoices.

In case you have to pay the “full cost”, without subsidy, a ticket for a winter month easily crossed $ 10,000.

Kirchnerism energy analysts circulated surveys with questions to people about subsidies. 51% of those surveyed by Zuban Córdoba confirm that the next government should increase state subsidies for services.

Women, people between 31 and 45 years of age and segments with prior education were the most likely to request to continue. At the middle level, this opinion also gains compliance (46%), while, among university students, those requesting to retain this benefit are roughly equal to those requesting to remove it (about 45%) .

NE