The cabinet will apparently decide today on the purchase of theNet4Gas network of natural-gas pipelines, although the deal isn’t on the cabinet’s official agenda. It’s the potential price that has attracted the most attention, because Net4Gas has debt of Kč 33bn and no gas- transit contracts. Ex-Industry Min. Karel Havlíček, who otherwise supports the government’s energy-infrastructure plans, said that the cabinet overpaid recently for RWE Gas Storage CZ by one-third, or by about Kč 3bn. PM Petr Fiala insisted at the time that the return on the investment would be “within 10 years” but has since upgraded it to “within about eight years.” In the case of Net4Gas, he’ll need a good reason to justify putting any money into a heavily indebted company with no transit contracts. He might argue that the Central European Hydrogen Corridor provides a wonderful opportunity for supplying the CR and Germany with cheap Ukrainian green hydrogen. Yet this means placing a big bet that Ukraine will win the war with its energy infrastructure mostly intact. If the owners of Net- 4Gas were convinced of this, they probably wouldn’t be selling.

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