The local government has allowed the city’s natural gas utility to raise the unit price of gas supplied to residential households by 8.23 percent, the Environmental Protection Bureau (DSPA) announced in a statement yesterday.
The price hike, which took effect yesterday, has been approved by a chief executive order which was published in the Official Gazette (BO) yesterday.
The city’s natural gas service is supplied by Macau City Gas Company Limited, a joint venture between Nam Kwong Natural Gas Company Limited and a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (aka Sinopec).
According to the statement, the natural gas unit prices for the utility’s four categories of users have all been raised, by between 8.23 percent and 14.34 percent.
The unit price for Category A, namely residential households, has increased from 6.9998 patacas to 7.5758 patacas per cubic metre, an 8.23 percent rise, the statement said.
According to the statement, the unit price for Category B, namely Non-residential Clients, has risen from 6.4122 patacas to 6.9882 patacas per cubic metre, up 8.98 percent.
The unit price for Category C, namely Big Clients, has increased from 6.3364 patacas to 6.9124 patacas per cubic metre, an 9.09 percent rise, while the unit price for Category D, namely Special Clients, has risen from 4.0156 patacas to 4.5916 patacas per cubic metre, up 14.34 percent, according to the statement.
According to the concession agreement between Macau City Gas Company Limited and the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) government, which was signed and published in the Official Gazette in late 2021, Category B users, namely Non-residential Clients, refer to government entities, and other entities involving public interest such as non-profit hospitals and schools, as well as all other commercial clients that do not belong to Category C or Category D.
Category C users, namely Big Clients, refer to clients that consume an average of at least 20,000 cubic metres of natural gas each month, while Category D users, namely Special Clients, refer to clients whose natural gas is supplied through high-pressure pipelines of the natural gas supplier’s transmission and distribution network.
Yesterday’s DSPA statement noted that the international market’s natural gas price has been rapidly increasing, which has also resulted in a significant rise in the natural gas market price in neighbouring regions compared to the same period of last year, the statement said.
Consequently, the statement said, the situation has resulted in a 20 percent increase in the cost of the acquisition of natural gas supplied to Macau.
Because of the situation, the statement said that according to the natural gas supply concession agreement, the local government has approved a natural gas price hike.
The statement underlined that residential households, i.e., Category A users, account for a major part of the natural gas supplier’s clients, adding that each residential household is expected to have to pay an average of 7.5 patacas more per month for their bills.
The statement pledged that the Environmental Protection Bureau will continue to urge the city’s natural gas supply concessionaire to negotiate with “upstream” suppliers that transmit natural gas to Macau with the aim of lowering the cost of natural gas supplied to Macau.
Macau City Gas Company Limited is headquartered in Cotai.
This undated handout photo taken from the website of Macau City Gas Company Limited yesterday shows its headquarters in south-west Cotai, which is located near Coloane’s Concórdia Industrial Park.
