Study On Thr Price Regulation Reform Of Municipal Pipeline Natural Gas

Municipal pipeline natural gas is important public goods of monopoly. Most countries place in under regulation because of its monopoly and welfare. Especially in China, natural gas is regarded as welfare products, which is placed under strict regulation, government implements low price policy. Most cities use the "initial installation fee and gas fee" mode. Natural gas is decided by government considering the business costs and reasonable profit of gas companies. So far, it has not yet formed a reasonable price formation and adjustment mechanism. In recent years, with the implementation of long pipeline project such as "Shanxi gas to Beijing","West-East Natural Gas","Russian Gas South" and so on, as well as the increase in gas import, municipal pipeline natural gas develop rapidly. As of2009, China's annual supply of natural gas to reach40.51billion cubic meters. Since the21st century, China's natural gas supply19.54%average annual growth rate. Meanwhile, the population reached14,543.7million, which is42.23%of total gas population. Compared with2000, it has increased by three times and municipal pipeline natural gas has much room for development. Government has deregulated the natural gas upstream and gradually links it with the international market and there is a clear rise in upstream price. Meanwhile, the existing price regulation system and pricing mode lead downstream-pipeline gas companies cannot digest and residential customers price exist inversion phenomenon, which result in kinds of problems.Recently, natural gas price exist many problems in price level, price structure and so on, which hinder the promotion of green fuels and further development of municipal natural gas. The paper tries to analyze the existing problems of municipal pipeline natural gas to explore the effective reform path of its price regulation.Firstly, this paper elaborates the pricing plight of monopoly industry, and analyzes the reasons of price regulation of municipal pipeline natural gas and describes history of China's municipal pipeline natural gas, and then basing on analysis current natural gas pricing mechanism reveals its existing problems. Then it explores the price regulation reform approach of municipal pipeline natural gas, which is combining deregulation with incentive regulation in use of incentive government regulation theory and principal-agent theory and learning developed countries'experience design price regulation system fit for China. The greatest feature of the paper is collecting first-hand data of Hangzhou Gas Company about gas price, combining the status quo situation to design the "three steps" of price regulation system reform of Hangzhou pipeline natural gas, which is Firstly, cancel the current installation fee system, rationalizing the price relationship to lay the foundation for price regulation reform. Secondly, access deregulate, bring in private capital, implementing franchise, reforming the past licensing system by administrative means. The last, apply franchise price clause; learn the UK price-cap regulation model to improve price incentive regulation. At the same time, the package measures of the reform, such as legislation system, regulatory authorities, pricing hearing system should be also taken.The paper is divided into six parts. The first part is research background and ideas. The second part elaborates the relative theories. The third part takes Hangzhou as an example to analyze the existing problems in gas price regulation. The forth part lists the experience of gas price regulation in the United States, Britain and other developed countries to give reference to China. The fifth part proposes the ideas of natural gas price regulation reform, and then designs concrete reform steps, combining the truth of Hangzhou. The last proposes policy recommendations of natural gas price regulation system reform based on the preceding analysis.