Consumer groups plan to submit a petition next month over the privatisation of PTT Plc to the Supreme Administrative Court, seeking the court's approval to revoke the two royal decrees supporting the privatisation in 2001.

"During our discussions with the legal team, we realised that many issues in the PTT case matched the Egat case perfectly," said Sairung Tongplon of the Federation of Consumers Organisations.

She said that during the privatisation process, the government had failed to follow proper procedures in regard to public hearings or qualifications for members of the privatisation committee.

The civic groups and legal team also pointed to the power that PTT still holds, despite its transformation into a public company, including ownership of the natural-gas pipeline.

"We're investigating whether the public incurred any damage from PTT operations in the past four or five years. If so, we'll file charges for that damage," she said.

An investigation would be based mainly on the Supreme Adminis-trative Court's ruling that revoked the two decrees supporting the privatisation of Egat Plc. "One difference is PTT is already privatised and failed to honour its promise to separate its pipeline business after privatisation," she said.

The federation decided to move on to nullifying the privatisation of several state enterprises after last week's Supreme Administrative Court ruling in their favour. Nakorn Chomphoochart, a member of the legal team, acknowledged that the case could affect the economy, "but all civic groups want to set a new standard to eliminate conflicts of interest".

Caretaker Energy Minister Viset Choopiban said yesterday that the pipelines could be spun off as a separate company under PTT without having to wait for a new government's consent.

"They need to register a new company. A separation would not affect PTT operations, because PTT would still hold a 100-per-cent stake in the new company. Still, the only issue to consider is the transfer tax, which is estimated to be Bt10 billion. We must discuss how to handle that cost," he said.

Sairung welcomed PTT's decision to spin off the pipeline business but said the federation would proceed with the petition as planned, because the separation would not change anything, given that the pipeline business would remain a PTT subsidiary.

"The pipeline should be returned to the state like the power transmission grids," she insisted.

A PTT source told the Thai News Agency the Finance Ministry had earlier agreed the separation would entail no transfer tax, but the Revenue Department later said the new company was subject to taxation when it transferred the assets. The source said shareholders should not be worried about the burden, given that PTT's profitability had improved each year.

"We insist we did not take advantage of consumers to reap higher profits. You can see the marketing fee for retail oil sales is now 60 satang per litre, compared with Bt1.20 per litre before privatisation," said the source.

Chitrapongse Kwangsukstith, PTT senior executive vice president for gas exploration and production, said in a company statement issued yesterday PTT was ready to spin off the pipeline business if all parties agreed. PTT is now prepared to discuss with the Energy Ministry and relevant agencies the issues involved with the separation as well as the tax question.

"We've practically run the pipeline business as a separate account since 2002. A spin-off had been considered but was shelved, because the authorities are completing the power-pool system," he said. The power-pool concept involves creating a central power unit accessible by all power producers.

"PTT insists that by failing to separate the pipeline business, the company has caused no damage to shareholders and consumers. After privatisation, PTT never raised the natural-gas transmission fee," he said.

Chitrapongse said that in the natural-gas price Egat paid to PTT, 90 per cent was for the gas and 10 per cent for the gas-transmission fee, with the rate set by the power authorities.

He also said that despite privatisation, PTT had kept its natural-gas prices lower than those quoted abroad. In 2001, the year PTT was privatised, natural gas rose from Bt145 per million British thermal units to Bt188 at present, an increase of 29.66 per cent. The present price for natural gas is 50 per cent cheaper than what is being quoted in Singapore and Europe, which means lower power-production costs here.

"The transmission cost accounts for less than 10 per cent of the natural-gas price, and so far PTT has never raised the transmission fee," he noted.

Viset also insisted that electricity prices had been increased not because of the gas-transmission fee, but rather because of the higher gas price.

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