COVID -19 UPDATE
Australian Gas Networks (AGN), part of the Australian Gas Infrastructure Group (AGIG) has an ongoing COVID-19 plan to address our operations.
South Australia and Queensland:
Our critical operations remain fully operational to maintain the safe and reliable supply of natural gas to the community. We will also continue to follow the respective State Government guidelines and restrictions in reference to the COVID-19 protocols.
Meter Reading Services including Service Order Reads;
Measures have been put in place to ensure that Meter Reading Services 4are able to be continued under COVID restrictions including following COVID protocols and safety practices such as wearing of masks, hygiene procedures and social distancing measures.
New connections (service) and meter installations (meter fix) will continue as usual with additional assessment undertaken where it is safe and there is available and unhindered access to the property.
If you have any questions please contact us on 1300 001 001.
Victoria and New South Wales: COVID-19 Lock down (October 2021)
Under the current Victoria and NSW Government lockdown, our critical operations remain fully operational to maintain the safe and reliable supply of natural gas to the community.
Meter Reading Services including Service Order Reads;
Measures have been put in place to ensure that Meter Reading Services are able to be continued under COVID restrictions including following COVID protocols and safety practices such as wearing of masks, hygiene procedures and social distancing measures. However they have now been broadened to include contactless service, ensuring the safety of our customers and staff whilst playing our part in reducing the virus impact.
All reads will be completed as long as there is clear, unhindered and contactless access to the gas meter. If there is any locked gates or other means such as doorbells or knocking required, readers will be unable to obtain these reads to ensure no customer contact in delivering meter reading services.
Please ensure when scheduling Service Order Reads this is communicated to your customers.
The contactless approach to meter reading is in line with COVID protocols and may result in an increase in customer estimated accounts. We will continue to leave a customer read card at sites where an actual reading is not obtained, which can then be sent to us for to process the read details.
New connections (service) and meter installations (meter fix) will continue as usual with additional assessment undertaken where it is safe and there is available and unhindered access to the property.
Disconnections;
All disconnection orders will be DB Cancelled and returned to respective retailer until further notice. There will be no disconnections performed during this period.
Please note: Network disconnections for safety will still continue where applicable.
All work activities are subject to change throughout the lock-down period, and normal work activities will resume following end of the lock-down period.
If you have any questions please contact us on 1300 001 001 (business hours).
Faults and Emergencies
Our faults or emergency service has not been impacted by COVID-19. If customers experience any gas faults or emergencies, please call on - 1800 427 532 (24 hours).
Customer Enquiries
Our Customer Enquiries centre can be contacted on 1300 001 001 (business hours). Whilst this call centre is operating normally, we do encourage customers to email your query to networkscustrela@apa.com.au. Email enquiries are being responded in a timely manner during business hours.
Operations
Our operational focus is to safely maintain the reliability of gas supply for our customers and the broader community. This service has not been impacted by COVID-19.
We are continuing to provide critical services including responding to gas faults and emergencies, carrying out emergency repairs, as well as operational and maintenance activities to ensure customers receive a safe and reliable gas supply.
As part our commitment in improving gas supply and delivering essential gas distribution services, our contractors will be performing works on the gas assets located within the vicinity of customers’ premise.
We are taking every precaution to ensure the safety and health of our customers, employees and contractors, but we need customers help by maintaining a high degree of vigilance. Our employees and contractors have been directed, and we ask customers to maintain social distancing (>1.5m) at all times.
If the customer’s gas supply needs to be turned off for planned maintenance, we will send customers a notice of this work so that they can plan ahead. We are aware that these types of planned outages may have a greater impact given that more people than ever before are now at home due to the COVID – 19. In these circumstances, we are closely evaluating the need for particular work activities to proceed and how we might be able to minimise the impact on customers in the current circumstances.
We are requesting any customer who is impacted by our field work activities such as above to declare if they are showing signs of flu symptoms or are isolating due to potential exposure, to ensure that we can make arrangements to protect the safety of our employees and contractors.