''There has been a steady downward trend in the world oil prices over the past month, but it still can not affect the price of gas in Bulgaria and get it lowered'', the chair of the Energy and Water Regulaory Commission Ivan Ivanov said on 27th of June after an open meeting of the regulator which discussed the increase in the price of natural gas by nearly 2% as of 1st of July, BNT reported. 

In April, the gas price went up by nearly 30%, resulting in higher heating and electricity prices, and now the regulator is preparing a new increase for the third quarter.

Ivan Ivanov explained that the lowered price of petrol by more than 50% in June could not be calculated in the new price of the natural gas, since the price formation takes into account the quotations for the last 9 months when they were considerably more expensive.

According to him, cheaper gas prices may be expected no earlier than the autumn.