The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has issued a draft decision exempting Meridian SeamGas Joint Venture and WestSide Corporation Limited (WestSide) from their ring fencing obligations under s.140 of the National Gas Law (NGL).
The AER considers that relevant criteria for granting the exemption under r.31(4) of the National Gas Rules (NGR) have been satisfied.
In this draft decision, the AER has decided to not grant exemptions for the ring fencing obligations under ss.139 and 141 of the NGL as it considers that the criterion under rr.31(3)(c) and 31(4) of the NGR have not been satisfied.
The granting of the exemption will not preclude the AER from reviewing the exemption if market conditions change substantially at any time in the future.
The draft decision also repeals a previous ring fencing exemption granted to the Dawson Joint Venture by the ACCC in February 2007. As required under r.9 of the NGR, the AER's draft decision is available together with a notice explaining why the decision is required and giving details of the context in which the decision has been made.
Invitation for submissions
The AER seeks written submissions from interested parties on the draft decision by 5pm on 28 June 2012.
Submissions may be sent electronically to AERInquiry
aer [dot] gov [dot] au (AERInquiry[at]aer[dot]gov[dot]au). Alternatively, submissions can be mailed to:
General Manager
Network Operations and Development Branch
Australian Energy Regulator
GPO Box 520
MELBOURNE VIC 3001
To allow for an informed and consultative process, all submissions will be considered as public submissions and will be posted on the AER website. If interested parties wish to submit commercial-in-confidence material to the AER they should submit both a public and a commercial-in-confidence version of their submission.
The public version of the submission should clearly identify the commercial-in-confidence material by replacing the confidential material with an appropriate symbol or '[c-i-c]'. All non-confidential submissions will be placed on the AER website.