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Islanders who were left without gas for weeks will have to wait until at least 2024 to find out if they will receive compensation.
In a statement, Island Energy said today that any payments made following October's major outage would be considered "goodwill", rather than compensation – and would have to come out of the firm's own pocket rather than its insurer's.
“We are still in the process of reviewing the effects of the supply disruption our customers experienced in October," a spokesperson said.
"One detail we have now confirmed with regards to our plans is that our insurance will not cover payments to customers.
"This is because there are no pre-agreed or pre-planned conditions for payments to customers when disruption occurs, and therefore any payment would be classified as a goodwill payment and not compensation."
They added: "We are factoring this into our plans to understand the full impact to our business and will be able to provide more information to customers in the new year.
“We would ask that customers bear with us, we will inform them of our plans as soon as we are able.”
More than 4,000 Island Energy customers in Jersey were left without gas starting on Saturday 7 October. While reconnection started on Friday 13 October, others still complained of being without gas three weeks later, with some being forced to take cold showers.
Hospitality was among the hardest hit sectors, with one local chippy reporting losses resulting from the outage of up to £10,000.
Pictured: Monika and Jon De Gruchy, the owners of Entwistles fish and chip shop, reported that they were facing losses of up to £10,000 due to the outage.
Later in October, Island Energy Chief Executive Jo Cox said domestic customers were "likely" to receive automatic compensation, while commercial customers' payouts would be considered on a "case-by-case basis".
During and following the outage, the company was repeatedly blasted for its communications with customers.
It later emerged that the gas provider had only email addresses for 40% of its customers, and mobile phone numbers for 20%, with Home Affairs Minister Helen Miles stating that "lessons need to be learned".
The exact nature of the outage has never been confirmed publicly – but at the time Ms Cox blamed what she described as "rogue code" in the system.
The saga prompted calls for nationalisation from Reform politicians to allow for an "orderly transition" for gas to be phased out.
However, Deputy Miles said that nationalisation would be “a considerable step needing careful thought” and that at present she did not believe there was evidence of it being beneficial.
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