We have conducted a preliminary assessment of the costs and benefits of regulating gas metering services and decided in 2016 not to commence a Part 4 inquiry.
On 1 April 2016, we decided against conducting a Part 4 inquiry into gas metering services.
While the Commission remains concerned about the level of competition in the market for the supply of gas metering services, the likelihood of the benefits of regulation materially outweighing the costs was not sufficient to justify an inquiry.
Our initial findings suggested the benefits of regulation would be modest for consumers – possibly saving between 63 cents to $1 on a monthly bill. Our indicative analysis did not yield sufficiently high benefits when balancing against the cost of an inquiry and any subsequent regulation.
Our remaining concerns about the scope Vector and Powerco have to raise their prices mean that we will continue to pay attention to the pricing of gas metering services in future, as we do with pricing in any infrastructure sector where competition concerns have been identified.
