The National Gas Access Regime is delivering positive outcomes for the Australian economy and the gas industry, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says in its submission to the Productivity Commission's Review of the National Gas Access Regime, issued today.
"Over the past few years there has been significant debate about the effectiveness of the regime", ACCC Chairman, Mr Graeme Samuel, said. "The ACCC examined the evidence and found that gas reform since the mid 1990s is a success story.
"There has been significant progress toward the government's objective of facilitating the development of a competitive national market for natural gas.
"The regime's introduction led to a reduction in published pipeline tariffs with current tariffs typically lower than pre-regulation tariffs.
"New pipelines have been built and investment in the transmission sector has accelerated. The length of the transmission pipeline network has increased by about 9,000 km since 1995 to be around 21,000 km today. The level of capital expenditure has increased substantially from an average of around $60 million per annum prior to 1995 to an average of around $430 million since 1995.
"Gas consumption has grown at an accelerating rate since the mid to late 1990s.
"However, while there are some encouraging signs of greater competition there is clearly some way to go. There remains an important continuing role for the Gas Access Regime in facilitating the future development of Australia’s gas industry.
"The ACCC believes that the Gas Code is operating as intended but some areas could be improved such as streamlining the access approval process, greater access to switching services through processing facilities, clarification of the status of expansions of pipeline capacity and simplifying competitive tenders".