The Government introduced full retail contestability for the gas market in May 2004.  This means that all gas consumers can negotiate a contract for the supply of gas to their premises with any natural gas retailer. 

Achieving full retail contestability means that all of the legal and technical requirements are in place to allow new gas companies to enter the market, thereby providing retail choice for all gas customers in the State.

Users that consume less than 1 TJ per annum of natural gas are commonly referred to as small use customers (generally these are households and small businesses).  A retailer must have a gas trading licence issued by the Economic Regulation Authority (ERA) to sell gas to small use customers.  Information on how to obtain such a licence can be found by contacting the ERA  (see also the Competitive Gas Markets page of this site).

Alinta has been licensed to supply natural gas to small use customers in the South Western Coastal Area, Kalgoorlie-Boulder and Albany. The South Western Coastal Area stretches from Geraldton in the North to Busselton in the South, and includes the Perth metropolitan area.

Within these trading licence areas, Alinta is required to offer tariff rates in accordance with the Energy Coordination (Gas Tariff) Regulations 2000.  These regulations stipulate that Alinta must supply gas to a small use customer tariffs that have been capped by Government.  The tariffs caps provide that price increases are limited to movements in the consumer price index.  The Government reviewed the operation and effectiveness of these Regulations and presented a Report to the Minister on 18 October 2007, which was tabled in Parliament on 27 November 2007.
 
Click here to read the Tariff Regulations Review Report.

Large users that consume more than 1 TJ per annum of natural gas are able to negotiate a contract with any natural gas retailer.  Retailers that supply large users are not bound by tariff caps.

Although full retail contestability has been implemented in Western Australia, Synergy is currently prohibited under the gas market moratorium from supplying gas to customers using less than 0.18TJ per annum. 

For a list of retailers for small and large users of natural gas see the Competitive Gas Markets page of this site. 
Contact details for retailers within Western Australia can be accessed on the Gas Industry Players page of this site.

Information on this page was last updated on 20 February 2007.