The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission today issued its final approval on the terms and conditions of transportation services proposed by APT Petroleum Pipelines Limited for the Wallumbilla to Brisbane Gas Pipeline, also known as the Roma to Brisbane Pipeline.
The terms and conditions of transportation services are set out in the company's access arrangement.
The access arrangement describes the terms and conditions, including the maximum price (tariff) of transportation services, on which it will transport gas via the pipeline on behalf of third parties.
The ACCC had some concerns with the access arrangement as originally submitted by the company and required it to make revisions to the access arrangement before the ACCC would approve it.
The company submitted a revised access arrangement that complies with the ACCC's requirements. Accordingly the ACCC has approved the revised access arrangement.
Among other things, the ACCC required revisions to achieve the following outcomes:
- ensure that the provisions of the access arrangement are consistent with the Queensland legislation
- remove the potential for the company to effectively change the terms and conditions of the access arrangement, by changing its standard Access Agreement, without consulting the ACCC
- for all expansions are to be considered as part of the covered pipeline unless the ACCC agrees otherwise.
In 1998 the Queensland Government passed legislation enabling it to approve the tariffs for transportation services for the four Queensland gas transmission pipelines.
This means that the owners of those pipelines are not required to submit tariffs to the ACCC for approval.
The dates for the first review of the access arrangements have also been determined by the Queensland Government. For this pipeline the first review is due in July 2006.
As a result, in its assessment of the proposed access arrangement the ACCC was unable to assess the price of transportation services and the review date, but was only able to assess the other elements of the proposed access arrangement.