Company chief executive Mark Franklin announced the across-the-board price cuts yesterday afternoon.

But he said Vector still considered it important to “rebalance” its gas services pricing in order to remove the existing distortion that favoured our residential customers at the expense of commercial and industrial customers.

"We accept that this is not possible in the immediate term," Franklin said.

"However, we will be working with the commission in the hope that this issue may be addressed in the final authorisation."

Last week Vector told the commission it was proposing to raise residential consumer prices by 5%, cut small business charges by 5%, and cut prices for medium-large commercial and industrial users by various amounts.

But commission chair Paula Rebstock warned the commission wanted price decreases across all customer classes and said it would intervene if necessary to ensure this happened.

Last month the Commerce Commission said it was imposing price control on the gas pipeline services of Vector and fellow energy network company Powerco and ordered Auckland-headquartered Vector to drop its average prices by 9.5% and New Plymouth-headquartered Powerco to cut its average prices by 9% from October.

This followed July’s recommendation by Energy Minister Trevor Mallard that price control for Vector and Powerco be implemented after the two were found to be earning "excessive" after-tax returns on capital of 12.7% and 13.5% respectively.