21st Century Business Herald reporter Cao Enhui and intern Sun Chenyang reported from Shanghai
On April 19 and 20, Chongqing and Chengdu successively reported the investigation and verification of gas-related problems reported by some citizens.
According to the report, problems such as miscopying, illegal estimation, and confusion of gas billing cycles have become common problems in the two places. For example, the Chongqing Municipal Joint Investigation Team found that the local price policy was not implemented in place and the meter change was not organized in order, while the Chengdu Municipal Administration for Market Regulation pointed out in the investigation that there were loopholes in the billing collection system and the non-transparent process of supplementation.
The gas incident, which lasted for nearly half a month, ushered in a phased response in the reports of the two places.
The gas incident ushered in the conclusion of the investigation
Since April this year, some residents in Sichuan and Chongqing have frequently reported abnormal gas bills.
On April 10, the Chongqing Municipal Administration for Market Regulation expressed its position on the metering disagreement after the replacement of gas meters in many districts and counties in the city. This is the first official response from Chongqing after the "turmoil": "We will investigate and deal with the illegal acts such as measurement and pricing of gas companies that are found to be verified and made public in accordance with the law." ”
On April 13, Chongqing held a press conference again to respond to the public's feedback on issues related to the increase in metering charges after the replacement of gas meters. At this press conference, Chongqing officially announced the establishment of a contact investigation team to enter Chongqing Gas Group and other related gas enterprises. Until April 19, Chongqing held three press conferences to announce the results of the investigation.
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter noticed that when Chongqing citizens reported gas problems, the number of complaints about similar problems from citizens in Chengdu and other places on the platform of "Ask Politics Sichuan" was also increasing day by day. For example, on April 18 alone, there were more than 60 complaints about gas problems on the Ask Politics Sichuan platform.
The reporter found through a keyword search with "gas" that the earliest complaint about gas charges on the "Ask Politics Sichuan" platform this month appeared on April 4.
In the content of the complaint, although the monthly gas consumption of residents is different, they all said that the gas bills paid recently have increased significantly compared with before the meter change.
A Chengdu citizen reported on April 13 that 20 days after the gas meter was replaced, the bill showed that the new arrears were more than 17,000 yuan, and a citizen from Zitong County, Mianyang, Sichuan Province, said that before the meter was replaced, the 200 yuan gas fee could be used by a family of three for at least four months, but now the 200 yuan gas bill is gone for a month.
The video uploaded by a citizen from Shuangliu District, Chengdu, shows that the gas meter is still "running" when only one faucet is turned on: "Last year, my family's average monthly gas consumption was more than 50, and since Hengye Gas Company was replaced by China Resources Company, my family's gas cost has risen to about 150 yuan per month." ”
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter noticed from the official reply on the Sichuan platform that the estimated gas collection may be one of the reasons for the "increase" in gas costs for some citizens.
Gas users are broadly divided into industrial, commercial, and residential users. Most of the industrial and commercial users adopt the prepaid mode of flow calculation controlled by IC card, that is, recharge in advance, insert the card to gas, and the residential user, if it is an old community, if the ordinary mechanical meter is used, without IC card or no remote transmission function, then when the settlement is made, not every month is read the meter, there is an estimated reading component, and the actual copy will be made up when the next month is actually received, and the meter with remote transmission can be copied.
In fact, as early as a year ago, some Sichuan netizens reported to the media that the amount of gas used did not reach the amount that needs to be paid, and there is a large gap between the two. At the same time, many Sichuan netizens also uploaded their gas bills and the actual readings of the gas meters at home to social media platforms, and the gas meter readings in the picture were all smaller than the bill readings.
If last year's gas bill problem can be attributed to a misunderstanding caused by the gas charging model, then what is the explanation for the "sharp rise" in gas bills reported by some citizens after the replacement of new meters this year?
In response to similar questions, Ziyang Ganghua Gas said that the company's staff had come to inspect and verified with netizens that there was no significant increase in gas volume as stated by netizens after changing the meter, and the reason for the increase in costs was that "First, from August 1, 2023, the residential gas price will be adjusted from 2.18 yuan/cubic meter to 2.34 yuan/ The second is that after the meter change on October 19, the weather is getting colder, and winter is the peak of gas consumption throughout the year, and the gas consumption will increase compared with other months. ”
On April 19 and 20, residents of Chongqing and Chengdu waited for the results of the survey.
The Chongqing Municipal Joint Investigation Team summarized the city's gas problems into six points: first, miscopying and illegal estimation, second, chaotic gas billing cycle, third, the implementation of price policy is not in place, fourth, the organization of meter replacement work is disorderly, fifth, the work force is seriously insufficient, and sixth, the internal supervision and management of some gas enterprises is not in place. In response to the above problems, the city's joint investigation team said that the gas company will be instructed to refund the full amount of the gas fee that has been investigated and confirmed to be overcharged; for the clues of the investigation that the enterprise violated laws and regulations, the investigation team handed over to the relevant departments to speed up the disposal according to law, and has now filed 14 cases for investigation, and will seriously investigate the violations of laws and regulations confirmed by the investigation and the relevant responsible persons.
The problems reported by Chengdu mainly focus on four aspects: first, there are problems of copying by estimation and illegal valuation; second, there are loopholes in the billing collection system and the process of supplementing is not transparent; third, the gas billing cycle changes arbitrarily and the pricing is not standardized; fourth, the service awareness of solving the demands of the masses is poor, and the working method is simple. Chengdu said that it has sent a joint investigation team to Chengdu Gas Group and other gas companies to conduct a thorough investigation of relevant issues and carry out centralized rectification. The relevant gas enterprises will be instructed to refund the full amount of the gas fees that have been investigated and confirmed to be overcharged in accordance with laws and regulations and discipline until they are investigated for legal responsibility.
It is worth mentioning that, judging from the current reports in Chongqing and Chengdu, there are no problems such as gas meter measurement and quality, gas quality, and changing gas meter measurement through remote control.
City Gas Company and the "Straight Price" Mechanism
The turmoil involved a number of city gas companies, the first of which was Chongqing Gas (600917. SH) and Chengdu Gas (603053.SH), two major A-share listed companies, and Hong Kong-listed China Resources Gas.
On April 19, Chongqing Gas issued an announcement on personnel adjustment, and the board of directors decided to appoint Li Jinlu as the general manager of the company and remove Che Dechen from the post of general manager; the board of directors agreed that Li Jinlu was the candidate for director and chairman of the company, and Che Dechen would no longer serve as the director and chairman of the company. This announcement echoes the dismissal of the relevant person in charge of Chongqing Gas Group mentioned in the investigation notice issued by the Chongqing Municipal Joint Investigation Team on the same day. The indirect controlling shareholder of Chongqing Gas Group is China Resources Gas, and the second largest shareholder of Chengdu Gas is China Resources Gas.
In this gas "turmoil", the performance of the gas company has also attracted the attention of the outside world.
In particular, Chongqing Gas's performance in the fourth quarter of 2023 increased significantly - combined with the performance express report, the company made a big profit of 219 million yuan in the fourth quarter of last year, an increase of 812.5% over the same period in 2022. In the performance report, Chongqing Gas said that the company's gas sales volume in 2023 will be 3.496 billion cubic meters, a year-on-year increase of 24 million cubic meters, an increase of 0.69%, and the number of customers served by the company by the end of 2023 will be 5.8464 million, and the number of gas installation households that have completed financial settlement will be 255,600.
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter noticed that in a record of investor relations activities dated March 12, 2024, Chongqing Gas said that last year's gas sales volume grew steadily, the price was good, and the connection volume did not fall much. In addition, the company introduced, "the company's purchase and sales customers are divided into residential customers and non-resident customers, and non-residential customers include industrial customers, commercial customers and collective gas customers." At present, the total number of customers of the company is about 5.86 million, and residential customers account for the vast majority. ”
It should be noted that the "price order" mentioned by Chongqing Gas refers to the gas price adjustment mechanism, that is, when the conditions stipulated in the linkage mechanism are met, the city gas company does not need to go through the hearing procedure, and can apply to the municipal price department, which will be reviewed by the municipal price department and reported to the municipal government for approval before implementation. A person from a local city gas company pointed out to the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that in the context of the continuous rise in global energy prices, the city gas company implements market-based pricing through the price mechanism, which makes the original price subsidy weaker and weaker. "Of course, this price adjustment can't be so frequent. ”
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter found that since the beginning of this year, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Fuzhou and other places have issued residential pipeline natural gas price adjustment plans. Taking Chengdu as an example, the Chengdu Municipal Development and Reform Commission issued a document in March this year to interpret that as early as 2018, the city had issued a document to establish a linkage mechanism for the corresponding adjustment of the sales price of residential gas with the change of the price of the gate station, and clearly stipulated that the linkage adjustment of the sales price will be started after meeting the linkage conditions of "the linkage adjustment of the price in the calculation period reaches 0.05 yuan/cubic meter or more" and "the principle of the linkage calculation cycle is not less than one year".
"From April 1, 2023, the upstream gas source unit will once again raise the price of residential valve stations in our province (up to 15%, up 0.16 yuan/cubic meter), in order to ensure the normal operation of gas business enterprises in our city and the gas demand of residential users, it was decided that the linkage calculation cycle will reach one year and start the linkage adjustment of the residential gas sales price according to the procedure. The Chengdu Municipal Development and Reform Commission pointed out in the interpretation article that after the price adjustment, the sales price of residential users and non-resident users who implement the residential gas price will be increased by 0.16 yuan per cubic meter on the basis of the current price, that is, the first, second and third tiered prices of residential gas are 2.34 yuan, 2.75 yuan and 3.36 yuan per cubic meter respectively, and the price of non-resident users who implement residential gas prices such as combined meter users and schools and pension and welfare institutions will be adjusted to 2.54 yuan per cubic meter.
It is undeniable that the implementation of the price adjustment mechanism will indeed have a direct impact on the adjustment of residential gas prices. Judging from the sales volume of Chongqing Gas and Chengdu Gas in 2023, the price increase of 0.1 yuan will bring more than 100 million yuan of revenue increase to these two companies.
On the evening of April 19, Chengdu Gas released its 2023 annual report. According to the financial report, in 2023, the company will achieve operating income of 5.173 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.98%, and net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of 526 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.03%. Last year, the company supplied a total of 1.695 billion cubic meters of gas to the operating area, an increase of 2.60% over the same period last year.
A research report recently released by Shenwan Hongyuan pointed out that in the context of the decline in global gas prices and the recovery of consumer demand, the city gas company will fully benefit from the three favorable factors of "volume increase", "price reform" and "old reform". Among them, the "price reform" refers to the fact that from the second half of 2023, the price of residential gas will be launched nationwide, and Hebei, Jiangsu and other provinces have basically realized the provincial price adjustment of residential gas. In the first quarter of 2024, Shenzhen and other cities have also started to pay off prices. "Considering that the first half of 2023 is still a policy window period, the year-on-year growth of residential gas performance in the first half of 2024 is highly certain. It is optimistic that the price adjustment mechanism for residents will continue to be promoted nationwide to ensure the stability of urban gas enterprises. ”
The handling of the Sichuan-Chongqing gas incident has an impact on the performance of several gas companies behind it and their stock prices are worth paying attention to.
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