The Economy Ministry on Tuesday refuted Nacional weekly's claim that Minister Davor Filipovic was warned three times in front of witnesses between April and June that surplus gas could appear on the market, saying he was not warned of that.

In its latest issue, which hit the newsstands on Tuesday, Nacional reported that the USKOK anti-corruption office found evidence at the HEP power utility showing that Filipovic had been warned, but ignored the warnings.

Noting that this was a continuation of orchestrated attacks on the government and Filipovic, the ministry said in a press release that at a 29 March crisis management team meeting, the HEP management board’s member in charge of gas, Petar Sprcic, did not warn either the minister or the others in attendance that the gas HEP was buying from INA would be in put into the pipelines and sold at low prices after the Okoli storage facility became full.

On 5 April, the ministry said, HEP’s management notified Filipovic that after Okoli became full, HEP would use the surplus gas generated by implementing a relevant government regulation for its own consumption and sell it on the domestic and/or foreign market unless instructed otherwise about dealing with the surplus gas.

The minister did not instruct HEP otherwise and HEP did not notify him after 5 April about its dealing with the gas, the ministry said.

Neither the head of the Energy Administration, Kristina Celic, nor special advisor Jurica Lovrincevic were warned by Sprcic that the surplus gas would be put into the pipelines and sold at low prices, the ministry said, adding that Sprcic did not warn the minister of that at HEP’s General Assembly meeting on 9 June either.

Filipovic was first notified that the gas HEP was buying from INA was being sold at low prices on 29 June by the HROTE regulator, and he notified Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Butkovic and Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic the next day, the ministry noted.

On 6 July, they added, the government amended the regulation eliminating disruptions on the domestic energy market and HEP ceased buying gas from INA.