Australian Competition And Consumer Commission News

Europe's race to replace Russian gas supply has threatened Australia's plans for five gas import terminals as they compete for key infrastructure, raising the risk of a supply shortfall in Australia's populous southeast in the next two years.France, Germany, and the Netherlands among others will need to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) to replace pipelined gas from Russia, which has been hit by sanctions during the Ukraine conflict.European users are grabbing floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) needed to convert LNG to gas…

Australia's southern states will need to import natural gas to fill a looming shortfall by 2024, as last year's COVID-19 induced oil and gas price slump has slowed investment in new fields, the country's competition watchdog said on Tuesday.Regulators have warned of a potential gas shortfall since 2016 as the market's mainstay gas source off the south coast is drying up, but the supply crunch is now rapidly approaching, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said."It is concerning that the risk of a gas supply shortfall in Australia's southern states continues…

Norwegian shipping company Wallenius Wilhelmsen Ocean AS pleaded guilty to charges of criminal cartel conduct in Australia’s Federal Court on Thursday, following an investigation by the country’s competition regulator.The charges relate to the transportation of vehicles, including cars, trucks and buses, to Australia between June 2011 and July 2012, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said in a statement.Wallenius Wilhelmsen was charged with cartel conduct…

Japanese shipping firm Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd (K-Line) was convicted of criminal cartel conduct and ordered to pay a A$34.5 million ($23.50 million) fine by a federal court, Australia's competition regulator said on Friday.K-Line’s fine is the largest ever criminal penalty imposed under the Competition and Consumer Act, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).The company was found to have engaged in a cartel with other shipping companies in order to fix prices on the transportation of cars, trucks, and buses to Australia between 2009 and 2012, ACCC said.K-Line

A new international cruise terminal will be operating in Brisbane within two years after Port of Brisbane and Carnival Australia announced they had reached a commercial agreement. The Brisbane International Cruise Terminal (BICT) at Luggage Point will be operating by mid-2020 and is expected to generate almost $5 billion in economic value for the Queensland economy alone within 15 years. The amended commercial agreement between Australia’s Port of the Year, Port of Brisbane Pty Ltd (PBPL) and Australia’s leading cruise organisation, Carnival Australia, follows the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) conditional approval of the project last month.

Spot LNG exports in government's cross-hairs; ConocoPhillips, Origin, Shell now in the firing line. The Australian government on Monday warned that the country's east faced a worse-than-expected natural gas shortfall in 2018, but the competition watchdog said the gap could easily be filled by diverting uncontracted exports to the local market. It is now up to the government to decide by Nov. 1 whether to pull the trigger on its Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism, which allows it to curb liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from the nation's east coast if it determines there will be a shortfall in any year. The supply gap identified…

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has raised concerns that Royal Dutch Shell's proposed $70 billion takeover of BG Group may lessen gas supply competition in eastern Australia and delayed a final decision on the bid to November. The competition watchdog said, after preliminary investigations, the proposed takeover  could damage the interests of east coast and Queensland gas users and force up prices. ACCC said a large number of market participants had expressed concerns that the proposed takeover may lead Shell's Arrow Energy to sell its gas into BG's Queensland Curtis liquefied natural gas plant (QCLNG) for export.

Coal mining giant Glencore has now applied to have the competition watchdog oversee pricing in the  newly privatised Port of Newcastle, reports  The Sydney Morning Herald. The NSW port is hiking some shipping charges up to 60 percent after its $1.75 billion privatisation last year. Glencore has made the application to the National Competition Council, describing the shipping channels in the Port of Newcastle as a natural 'bottleneck' monopoly. This pitch for Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) protection comes as management of Victoria's Port of Melbourne stares down a similar threat of declaration under national competition law…

Howard Smith Ltd.'s likely sale of its Australian and U.K. towage operations to Adsteam Marine Ltd would enable the sluggish company to focus on hardware and industrial supplies distribution, analysts said. The deal was also viewed as a positive for acquisitive Adsteam, already the largest operator of marine towage services in Australia's mature market. Adsteam expanded into the U.S. market in 1999 and would welcome a foothold in the U.K. market. Hardware retailer, industrial supplier and towage operator Howard Smith announced earlier that it was in talks with Adsteam but said no agreement had yet been reached. "We would see it as positive in that it's focusing the business of Howard Smith on the distribution side…