On 11 July 2017, the AEMC published a draft rule determination to enhance the breadth and accuracy of information provided to the market through the Natural Gas Services Bulletin Board (the Bulletin Board).
The rule change was requested by the COAG Energy Council and follows from the east coast wholesale gas market framework review.
Draft rule determination
On 22 August 2017, the AER provided a submission in response to the AEMC’s Draft Rule Determination. The submission includes the following views:
We support the draft proposal, including measures to attach civil penalty provisions to certain rule obligations. We also support the proposed introduction of a new information standard (also subject to civil penalties) to promote confidence in the information that market participants provide for publication on the Bulletin Board.
More specifically, we support the proposed requirement for production facilities to provide updates on changes to their production capacity. However, we are concerned that the proposal does not address what we regard as a “speed of update” problem. We suggest that the draft rule could be enhanced to include a requirement that production facilities flag their capacity changes as soon as practicable (similar to the line pack flags applied to pipelines).
Finally, we accept that AEMO requires time to implement the changes and that affected parties require time to make necessary adjustments. However, we deem it desirable to commence the new reporting requirements as soon as possible to enable market participants and stakeholders to access valuable additional data.
More information
More information on the AEMC’s draft rule change is available on the AEMC website.