WESTERN Australian energy minister Colin Barnett announced plans to accelerate the deregulation of the state’s gas market this week, 10 years ago. Under the new arrangements, customers will be able to choose their gas supplier from January 1 1998 if their demand is below 250 terajoules a year. This threshold will be reduced to 100tj from January 1, 2000. Mr Barnett said the final steps of deregulation were in place, and AlintaGas would be the sole supplier of gas to small business and householder markets. All other markets would be open to competition, representing 94 per cent of total gas sales in WA, he said. “The government was very mindful of the need to allow access to be phased in on a time frame which would not be too onerous financially on AlintaGas.”