While the crisis in Ukraine is causing oil and gas prices to soar, Bruno Le Maire wanted to send a reassuring message to the French.
“
We will maintain the freeze on gas prices for individuals in all circumstances
,” said the Minister of the Economy, during a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday, centered on the economic priorities of the French presidency of the European Union.
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“
Whatever the gas prices are in the weeks to come, we will guarantee the freezing of gas prices for individuals during the year 2022
”, he hammered, after being questioned by several senators on this subject.
The tenant of Bercy also tried to allay the fears of gas suppliers.
“
We have provisioned 1.2 billion euros in the finance bill to compensate supplier companies.
If ever this amount were to be insufficient because gas prices increased in the coming months, we would take the necessary steps to guarantee compensation to gas supplier companies.
»
The bar of 75 dollars per MWh exceeded
The blocking of gas prices for individuals was decided in October, as part of the "
tariff shield
" announced by the government to counter against the inflation of energy prices, and should in principle end in June 2022. Without this measure, the Energy Regulation Commission (CRE) considers that
"the average level of regulated sales tariffs on February 1, 2022 would have been higher by 73.7% excluding tax, or 66.5% including tax, compared to the level in force fixed on 1 October”.
Read alsoEurope in search of alternatives to Russian gas
Already driven by the global economic recovery, market prices for natural gas and oil are currently soaring due to the growing threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow being the world's second largest exporter of oil and the world's largest exporter of natural gas.
On Tuesday, the price of gas in Europe exceeded 75 dollars per megawatt hour (MWh), while that of oil climbed very close to the 100 dollar mark.
