Policy Considerations for the New Zealand Natural Gas Industry

Abstract

Professor Stanford Levin and Alfred Duncan undertake a study of the natural gas industry in New Zealand at a time when the two industry regulators are undertaking regulatory initiatives.The Commerce Commission is in the midst of setting their default price-quality regulatory framework that will take effect in July 2012. The Gas Industry Company the industry co-regulator has just recently issued a proposal to undertake a project to determine the current need for gas transmission investment and to develop a way for any needed investment to occur.The authors are hopeful that this study will prove useful to industry participants policymakers and also to the two industry regulators.