UralSeverGaz summed up the results of its performance during this year’s heating season. Most of the housing maintenance and utilities services that buy their gas accumulated large debts in terms of paying for the gas they had already consumed. The total sum of debts reached the point of 1.775 billion RUR on April 25, 2007, which is thrice the amount recorded in October 2006 when the heating season actually began (650 million). The housing maintenance and utilities services make up only 12% of natural gas consumers, whereas their share of delayed payments amounts to 73%.

‘The end of the heating season was marked by a shamefully great amount of debts. We have never had anything like this before: the money they owe us would be enough to buy enough gas to supply the entire Sverdlovsk Region for a month,’ says Dmitriy Lavrenko.

The list of debtors with over 10 million RUR worth of debt comprises 22 enterprises with varying ownership schemes, including municipal unitary enterprises such as TagilEnergo, as well as Shabrovsk Electrical Networks Ltd. and Beresovskiy Heat Supply Networks Ltd.

Mr. Lavrenko believes the only effective solution to the problem is cutting down on gas supplies to bad debtors. The procedure is going to be implemented in compliance with all the legal requirements beginning from May 2007.