Elsid Titu shareholders lost case against Euro Insol, financial administrator of Hidroelectrica

Shareholders of Elsid Titu company, Mihai Tufan and Mihai Anastasescu, lost their case against Euro Insol, the financial administrator of Hidroelectrica, the appeal formulated by them against the application in 2012 of force majeure in the contract supplying electricity concluded with Hidroelectrica being denied by Bucharest Court of Appeal. “Elsid contested the application of force majeure in 2012, registered with Bucharest Court with no. 31833/3/2012. By civil sentence 1443/11.02,2015 the Court denied the appeal and compelled Elsid to pay court expenses. Elsid appealed and the decision became final,” a Hidroelectrica press release reads. Elsid, an energy trader and producer of electrodes contested the activation of the force majeure clause by Euro Insol over August 1, 2012-December 1, 2012, a clause which led to reducing the quantity of energy delivered by Hidroelectrica to Elsid. In 2012, Hidroelectrica faced the biggest draught in the history of the company. That year the Danube recorded the lowest flow in the last 150 years and Hidroelectrica had the lowest energy production ever of only 11.8 TWh. At that moment the company had signed contracts of 20 TWh. In order to honour those contracts the company bought energy at prices of 260-300 lei/MWh from thermo producers and from the market at 350-400 lei/MWh to sell it for 103-132lei/MWh. When insolvency procedure was initiated, companies Elsid and Electrocarbon Slatina, another company owned by Mihai Tufan and Mihai Anastasescu, had a contractual price of 103 lei/MWh, unable to cover the price of 187 lei/MWh and lower than the market price of about 220 lei/MWh. The two contracts concluded by Hidroelectrica with Elsid Titu and Electrocarbon Slatina generated a loss of 200 million lei over 2006-2012. Hidroelectrica is in insolvency for the second time in the last three years, the first one being between June 2012 and June 2013. After opening the procedure, Euro Insol started negotiations with energy traders to align the contract price (103-132 lei/MWh) to the market electricity price, where energy was sold at double prices (220-300 lei/MWh). Selling electricity at contract prices generated losses of 4.875 billion lei (about 1.1 billion euros) over 2006-2012.