On 26 March 2026, the AEMC published a consultation paper to seek stakeholder views on allowing the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) to accept cash as credit support in the National Gas Rules (NGR) in response to a rule change request from Delta Electricity (Delta).

Certain participants in the Declared Wholesale Gas Market (DWGM) and the Short Term Trading Market (STTM) are required to provide an acceptable form of credit support to AEMO, unless exempted by AEMO. This provides financial assurance to AEMO in case a participant defaults and is unable to settle its outstanding dues. Currently, the only forms of credit support allowed by the NGR in these markets are bank guarantees or another immediate, irrevocable and unconditional commitment in a form acceptable to AEMO. The NGR currently does not allow cash as credit support in these markets.

Delta considers that while participants did not face barriers in obtaining bank guarantees historically, there has been an increasing trend of financial institutions no longer providing credit support to participants with exposure to fossil fuels, for example coal and gas fired electricity generation and coal mining. Hence, Delta perceives a real risk that a market participant, while being a profitable and solvent business, may be unable to provide credit support to AEMO.

Next steps

Submissions to the consultation paper closed on 30 April 2026.

The Commission has extended the timeline for preparing the draft determination by two weeks due to the complexity of issues. It will now be published on 23 July 2026.
 

Background

On 28 July 2025 the AEMC received a rule change request from Delta Electricity to amend the National Gas Rules. This request follows from a similar rule change made by the AEMC on 26 June 2025 allowing AEMO to accept cash as credit support in the National Electricity Market (NEM) up to a limit of $20 million, which will commence on 1 November 2026.