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Hong Kong consumers face higher gas bills as Towngas discusses tariff increase with government
- The increase in tariffs ‘will be reasonable, and it will not be a double-digit increase’, managing director Peter Wong says
- The city’s sole piped-gas provider last raised its basic tariff by 4.4 per cent in August 2022
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Hong Kong and China Gas (Towngas) is in discussions with the government about raising tariffs, which could be its first in two years, amid growing pressure to deliver returns to shareholders.
“We have communicated with the government and submitted our opinion [about lifting gas tariffs],” Peter Wong Wai-yee, managing director of Towngas, said at a media briefing after the annual general meeting on Tuesday. “It will be reasonable, and it will not be a double-digit increase.”
He added there was no timetable to raise tariffs, and that it was subject to the government’s approval.
The city’s sole piped-gas provider last raised its basic tariff by 4.4 per cent in August 2022 to meet rising operating costs and investment needs.
The company, one of the largest natural gas distributors in mainland China, posted a 16 per cent jump in net profit to HK$6.07 billion (US$776.2 million) last year, helped by increasing gas sales on the mainland as economic activity picked up after the Covid-19 pandemic. That result beat analysts’ estimates of HK$5.88 billion.
The utility’s annual dividend payout has remained unchanged for the past three years at HK$0.35. The final dividend for 2023 will be paid on June 24.
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