Study On Price Regulation About Our Natural Gas Industry

In the 21st century, the gas industry will enter"the golden age", as the natural monopolyindustry, the government has carried on the strict rules and regulations to it. The priceregulation which has serious influence to gas industry production efficiency and natural gasresource allocative effects is the core of the government regulations. At the same time, themodern price regulation theory has also provided the rationale for our country natural gasprice regulation reform. This article research natural monopoly price regulation theory andabsorb the successful experience from natural gas industry price regulation reform.This article first introduces the natural monopoly industry price regulation theory,provides the rationale for the following research, stands on the whole industries' degree,grasps the different industrial organizational characteristics of it's three links as production,transmission and marketing, and operates them independently on their different economicalattributes, pointed out the necessity of the price regulation to the gas industry. And then thisarticle introduces our country gas industry price regulations' present situation, and pointes outseparately the problems of three links as production, transmission and marketing in priceregulation. Finally according to successful experiences of gas industry price regulation indeveloped country like US, Britain, put forward our country gas industry regulation reformproposal.The most suitable regulatory system for the natural gas production link, which has aweak natural monopoly characteristic, is the mixed ownership system which allows privatecapital entering the market. And the most suitable regulatory way is amended franchisebidding model; the most appropriate regulatory system for natural gas transmission link,which has a strong natural monopoly characteristic, is public ownership system. And theprofessional regulatory institution provides efficient price regulation based on the amended price-cap regulatory theory and the two-part tariff theory;under the circumstances of allowingthe introduction of competition in the market, the most suitable regulatory model for thenatural gas marketing chain which has a weak natural monopoly characteristic and regionalcharacteristic, is yardstick competition model;we should also build up a professionalregulatory system with a right balance and issue a Natural Gas Act including the formersuggestions and proposals for the reform of Chinese natural gas industry in order to ensure theeffective regulatory reform of our natural gas industry.