ArcelorMittal wants to sue Romanian Gov’t for postponing the exemption of green certificates payment

Largest local steel plant, ArcelorMittal Galati, part of the ArcelorMittal Group, intends to sue the Romanian Government for delaying by half a year company’s exemption from payment of part of green certificates, Bruno Ribo, CEO ArcelorMittal Galati said, agerpres.ro informs.

In 2014, to protect the industry, the Government decided that large consumers of electricity to be exempted from payment of part of green certificates.

Then, some divergences have emerged in the sector, on the time at which this exemption is applied. Consumers say that the exemption should be applied at the time of signing the exemption contract, but the Government has recently approved a decision (GD no. 113/24 February 2016) which states that this will happen when issuing the agreements, meaning as of mid-2015.

The first largest energy consumers, Alro Slatina and ArcelorMittal Galati have signed the exemption deals in December 2014 and now require the cuting of green certificates to be applied throughout 2015, not only for half a year.

Regarding ArcelorMittal, Bruno Ribo said that the gap means millions of euros and jeopardizes the company’s investments.

“It’s an unexpected development that threatens our investment plan focused on increasing sustainability and continuing the operations. Very important is the negative signal sent by the Government in terms of predictability of economic environment in Romania,” Ribo noted.

He added that, in other countries where ArcelorMittal operates, the procedure is carried out without any problems and was applied very early, to protect the industry against competition from outside the EU.

Ribo stated that the steel producer has invested in Romania from 2009 to now over EUR 350 million, despite significant losses.