The city’s natural gas utility has decreased the unit price of gas supplied to residential households by 3.39 percent, the Environmental Protection Bureau (DSPA) announced in a statement yesterday.
The price reduction, which took effect yesterday, has been formalised by a chief executive order which was published in the Official Gazette (BO) yesterday.
The city’s natural gas service is provided 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 reduced, by between 3.39 percent and 5.59 percent.
The unit price for Category A, namely residential households, has decreased from 7.5758 patacas to 7.319 patacas per cubic metre, a 3.39 percent drop, the statement said.
According to the statement, the unit price for Category B, namely Non-residential Clients, has dropped from 6.9882 patacas to 6.7314 patacas per cubic metre, down 3.68 percent.
The unit price for Category C, namely Big Clients, has decreased from 6.9124 patacas to 6.6556 patacas per cubic metre, a 3.72 percent drop, while the unit price for Category D, namely Special Clients, has dropped from 4.5916 patacas to 4.3348 patacas per cubic metre, down 5.59 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.
Macau City Gas Company Limited is headquartered in Cotai.
Yesterday’s DSPA statement noted that despite the international market’s still high natural gas price, the cost of the acquisition of natural gas supplied to Macau has decreased thanks to the change in the exchange rate between the pataca and the yuan over the past year.
Because of the situation, the statement said that according to the natural gas supply concession agreement, the local government has required the utility to decrease its natural gas unit prices accordingly.
The utility had raised its natural gas price early last year. Despite the decrease that took effect yesterday, Macau’s reduced natural gas price is still higher than in 2022.
