Tag: gas

Gas interconnection, decision made

I blogged earlier about the draft decision of the CER on the pricing rules for the gas interconnectors.

The decision is now final. I find the document hard to read, because it assumes that you are familiar with the draft decision, and it rambles between the actual decision, decisions that might have been, justification of the decision, and responses to comments to the draft decision. This is what I think was decided:

  1. The interconnector will be moved, legally, from offshore to onshore.
  2. Interconnector capacity will be auctioned.
  3. There is a reserve price for the auction.
  4. The reserve price is the long-run marginal cost.
  5. If the auction does not cover the costs of the pipe-formerly-known-as-the-interconnector, the difference will be split over ALL gas suppliers.

I am not sure whether there will really be an auction, or whether the reserve price will always hold.

The contentious point, however, is the long-run marginal cost. This implies that Bord Gais will have a guaranteed income on its assets.

Instead of forcing BGE to take a hit on what might turn out to be a bad investment in interconnection, the CER forces gas consumers to make up the difference.

This is wrong in principle. It is a transfer from gas users to the owners of BGE. And it distorts competition.

Gas interconnection

In December, I blogged about the peculiar pricing rules for the gas interconnector with Scotland. (The current rules would grant substantial market power to importers of LNG.

The CER has been aware of this for a while, and has now published a draft decision. The proposal boils down to the following elements:

  1. The interconnector will be moved, legally, from offshore to onshore. It remains to be seen that this would satisfy the European Commission, which is not happy either about the current regime.
  2. Interconnector capacity will be auctioned.
  3. There is a reserve price for the auction.
  4. The reserve price is the long-run marginal cost.
  5. If the auction do not cover the costs of the pipe-formerly-known-as-the-interconnector, the difference will be split over ALL gas suppliers.

Shannon LNG is understandably cross. They publicly fume about point 5, which will impose a cost on them that rises as they are more successful, but privately they must have hoped that the rules would not change. While I have argued that the rules should change, the current proposal can easily be spun as the regulator protecting a state-owned company from a private competitor.

Point 4 is worrying too. In the decision document, the CER goes back and forth between OPEX for the reserve price and OPEX+CAPEX. In the end, they opt for OPEX+CAPEX. Essentially, they propose to perpetually reward Bord Gais for what increasingly looks like a bad investment decision in the past.

Nothing has been set in stone yet. Let us hope that the CER will reconsider.

Gormanston, Tarbert and regulation

The Examiner has a story on the proposed LNG terminal at Tarbert in the Shannon estuary. This is a privately funded project and a welcome stimulus for North Kerry. As long as the developers play within the rules, public policy analysts should have no opinion on such matters. But as the gas market is so heavily regulated, private actors affect the public good. The LNG terminal would, for instance, improve the security of supply, which is very valuable.

Minister Rabbitte argues that Shannon LNG would increase the price of gas. This is absurd at first sight. Increased competition should reduce the price. The minister is right, though. To see why, we need to consider the gas interconnector from Scotland that lands in Gormanston in Co Meath, or rather the way in which its price is regulated: The annual cost of the pipe is distributed over the gas it carries.

The interconnector is a competitor’s wet dream. If you capture a small part of the gas market, the interconnector will increase its price — because its annual cost is distributed over a smaller volume. You can then increase your price to just below that of the interconnector and gain yet more market share. And the interconnector will raise its price again.

The solution surely is to change the regulation of the interconnector rather than to block the LNG terminal. The current regulation, which may date back to the days of Minister Woods or Fahey, is a neat example of something that makes sense in the short run only.

Note the separation of powers. Minister Rabbitte is the executive branch of government and an influential part of the legislative, he appoints and controls the budget of the regulator, and he is the trustee for the shareholders (us) of the dominant company in the market.