An employee checks Sinopec’s natural gas transmission facilities in Xuanhan county, Sichuan province, in this file picture taken April 29, 2011. BEIJING—would raise natural gas prices for residential consumers by the end of 2015 in a bid to conserve energy. The move won’t have a big initial impact on the market as about 80% of households won’t see a change in their rates, the National Development and Reform Commission said in a statement on its website. But the heaviest consumers will pay around 1.5 times a base rate for household use gas while a second tier will pay 1.2 times the base rate—and these two groups make up about 20% of the market, the NDRC said. The move is part of a broader effort to relax controls on prices of scarce resources. At a key policy meeting in November, senior Communist […]