The National Regulatory Authority for Energy is preparing to extend the deadline by which the non-household consumers may conclude contracts with gas suppliers, given that tens of thousands of customers in this category have not taken advantage of the market liberalization in mid April.

According to the Order draft published on the Authority’s website, the consumers that will not conclude a sale contract for natural gas before August 31 will be forced to remain at the existing supplier, under its conditions and by complying with the contractual terms it proposed. The current deadline set by an Order of the ANRE in 2014, is 30 June.

The latest data of the Authority (15 April 2015) shows that only 58.87% of the non-household consumers of natural gas, slightly more than one hundred thousand consumers, have concluded contracts with a supplier under negotiated terms, after eliminating the regulated tariffs and after the liberalization of this segment of the market from 1 January 2015.

About 71,000 non-household customers, representing 41.13% of their total number, have not concluded sales contracts for natural gas,  regarding the gas supply under negotiated terms, before April 15, 2015.

Most of the contracts concluded no later than 15 April (over 48,000) register into the category of small consumers with an annual consumption of less than 23.25 MWh.