France Pushing For Alignment Of Gas Prices With Production Costs - Energy Minister

France is working on bringing European gas prices into line with production costs, French Energy Transition Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said on Monday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2022) France is working on bringing European gas prices into line with production costs, French Energy Transition Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said on Monday.

"We are working together with the European Commission and some third-party countries to find ways and means of getting a price for gas that is closer to the reality of production costs, since currently this price of gas is disconnected from our main suppliers' production costs," Pannier-Runacher said during a press briefing after weekly meeting of the country's Council of Ministers.

The minister was answering a question about a proposal circulating in Brussels to limit the price of gas, whatever its origin, Russian or non-Russian. She explained that there were different ways of achieving that result, either by imposing a price cap on gas supplied by non-EU countries or by compensating the difference between the procurement price and the market price for consumers.

According to Fitch Ratings, prices for natural gas in Europe have surged almost 15-fold between August 2021 and August 2022, partly due to disruptions in gas flows from Russia to the European Union, linked to the hostilities in Ukraine and subsequent EU sanctions. EU members are discussing a price cap on Russian gas, but German Europe Minister Anna Luehrmann warned that the move could cause gas shortages within the bloc.

G7 finance ministers and the EU have also been trying to find a way to implement a price cap on Russian oil exports via maritime transport, together with the EU oil embargo to be implemented starting from December 5, EU Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni announced in a statement on September 2. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the decision "absurd."