Heating utility Toplofikatsiya Sofia will re-calculate the bills it issued for January and would scale them down not to include the regulator-approved 18.7 per centprice hike, Economy Minister Petar Dimitrov said on February 24.

Dimitrov's statement comes a week after media reports about heating bills rising by an average 30 per cent sparked outrage, considering that Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev and Toplofikatsiya executive director Petko Milevski both promised in January that heating bills be lower because of the disruption of service caused by the interrupted gas deliveries during the Russia-Ukraine gas row.

The higher bills for January will be delivered to consumers as scheduled this week, but the increase would be subtracted from the February bills, Dimitrov said on the sidelines of an international seminar on energy issues, held in Sofia.

The Cabinet's measure will only affect the Sofia utility, but the ministry plans to ask the State Energy and Water Regulatory Commission (SEWRC) to suspend the price hikes it authorised for other heating utilities in the country. This is a social and anti-crisis measure that will affect the business and Bulgaria as a whole," Dimitrov said.

The Government effectively brought forward the impending price cuts several months, with the regulator due to cut prices in April because of falling prices of oil and natural gas on world markets.

Without the price hikes and with consumption down 11 per cent in January 2009, Sofia residents should pay for heating no more than they did in 2008, Dimitrov said.