Centrica has Rough plea rejected

12th Jan 2011 07:12

Centrica's appeal to have competition restrictions lifted from its Rough gas storage facility in the North Sea has been rejected by the Competition Commission.Rough provides the majority of Great Britain's gas storage for the winter. When it acquired the facility in 2002, Centrica made several undertakings to ensure it did not abuse its dominant position in the market. The firm now wants these lifted because alternative gas supplies are available. In today's provisional ruling, the Commission accepted that the UK gas market had changed, with several new sources of supply, but concluded that Rough still had market power in the supply of flexible gas and Centrica continues to have a strong position in the retail supply of gas.Because of these, the Commission provisionally concluded that the undertakings were still required."Although its share has fallen, Centrica remains by far the largest domestic gas supplier in the UK. Equally, whilst there has been a significant increase in the available capacity for importing gas to Great Britain we found that we needed to take into account other factors that may determine the amount and cost of the gas delivered from abroad," Commission deputy chairman Dave Whitcomb said.