Hungary's Energy Minister Accused of Misrepresenting Gas Price Situation
Hungary's Energy Minister István Kapitány has been called out by energy attorney Máté Tóth over his claims about gas prices. In a social media post, Kapitány said that Hungary had fixed the price of gas and was working on implementing a price cap for the entire gas year.
Tóth pointed out that such 'fixing' is not possible in practice and that physical gas purchases and hedging against price risk are two separate transactions. He stated that MVM, Hungary's state-owned energy company, had already begun hedging transactions for 2027 as part of its previous management's efforts to secure gas supplies.
Tóth claimed that the current government had mishandled the situation by not taking immediate action to conclude necessary hedging contracts. He stated that such contracts could have been concluded within minutes but were instead left undone for three and a half months, resulting in significantly higher natural gas futures prices.