USKOK investigators entered the headquarters of Hrvatska elektroprivreda (HEP) last week in order to, according to unofficial data, collect documents related to the latest affair of buying gas at higher prices and selling it at lower prices.
The State Prosecutor’s Office did not want to comment on that information, and they requested a written inquiry from HEP, to which they have not yet responded.
Dnevnik 24 sata announced that investigators on the order of Uskok (Office for Suppression of Corruption and Organized Crime) came to HEP for documents related to the gas affair, in which HEP bought gas at higher prices, and then sold it for one cent because it was surplus.
That the State Prosecutor’s Office (DORH) is interested in data on gas trade has so far only been officially confirmed by the director of the Croatian Energy Market Operator (HROTE), Boris Abramović, who stated on Friday that the State Prosecutor’s Office requested data related to the period of validity of the Regulation on the Elimination disruptions on the domestic energy market, that is, on the gas that HEP, according to that regulation, had to buy from INA.
Abramović says that HROTE can confirm that during June, Plinacro had to release 57,000 megawatts from the transport system, for the sake of balancing, because that was the total amount purchased by customers of HEP’s gas.
“That information was recorded on the trading platform,” he said, but he could not answer who those buyers were and who bought how much.
The question of the sale of surplus gas, which HEP buys from INA at a regulated price, was opened after Most MP Zvonimir Troskot established that HEP sells that gas significantly below the price and thus creates losses.
Nedeljnik Nacional announced on Tuesday that Prime Minister Andrej Plenković was warned several times and should have known everything in advance about the new gas scandal and the enormous losses was HEP was caused by excess gas on the market, but he was lied to the Croatian public from the moment the scandal broke out. that he is not informed about it and that he is still collecting data.
According to the weekly, Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Davor Filipović ignored the letters they received on January 27, February 13, March 27 and the request from February 1.
Nacional also claims that HEP director Frane Barbarić informed them in vain about the dramatic development of the problem, the scale of which, due to the sale of stored gas at low prices, could reach 200 million euros in losses for HEP.
