Desperate moves to avert blackout
Caretaker ministers strive to secure cash flow for the energy market
By Chryssa Liaggou
The caretaker government is in a race against time to avert an energy
blackout the sector’s major funding problems could lead to, while the
Public Gas Corporation (DEPA) has asked the Regulatory Authority for
Energy (RAE) to take measures to protect the country’s electricity
network, suggesting it could stop supplying private power producers,
which owe it 300 million euros.
Finance Minister Giorgos Zannias
and Environment and Energy Minister Grigoris Tsaltas held a broad
meeting on Friday with representatives of all parties involved in the
energy market, including Public Power Corporation (PPC). The meeting
ascertained the immediate risk of a domino effect on energy companies,
with unfathomable consequences for the country’s economy.
In its
letter to RAE, DEPA highlighted its inability to pay its debts to its
foreign suppliers. It will need at least 100 million euros in cash to
pay Turkey’s Botas by June 15 and Russia’s Gazprom by June 22. Should it
be unable to find this money by June 14, it will ask banks to forfeit
the guarantees of private power producers and stop supplying their
plants with gas, which would drive them into bankruptcy and cause
serious problems in the country’s power supply.
PPC head Arthouros
Zervos admitted to Reuters yesterday that “there is a real threat of
power cuts” and that “this is an emergency and has to be addressed
immediately.”
Friday’s meeting decided that the sole source of
liquidity in this instance is the Deposits and Loans Fund. A first
installment, amounting to 100 million euros, from the 350 million euros
set to be given to LAGHE, the electricity market operator, could be
disbursed to DEPA’s benefit by June 14.
A source leaked on Friday
that Zannias spoke with Bob Traa, the senior International Monetary Fund
resident representative in Athens, and convinced him to green-light the
disbursement of the loan to DEPA, putting aside his demand for tackling
the structural problems of the market first.
Zannias is also said
to have asked Prime Minister Panayiotis Pikrammenos to authorize the
release of the accounts by former alternative power suppliers Energa and
Hellas Power, for the 80 million euros they owe to LAGHE to return to
the energy market. | 
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