(Adds background on Gippsland Basin JV, ACCC investigation)
Dec 18 (Reuters) - The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) said on Monday that BHP and ExxonMobil's local arm Esso Australia Resources would separately market their respective shares of gas produced from their Gippsland Basin joint venture from 2019.
“The ACCC was concerned that the joint marketing arrangements were likely to have resulted in a substantial lessening of competition in the market for the supply of gas to buyers in the southern states," ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said in a statement.
Both companies have provided the regulator with a court enforceable undertaking that requires them to separately market gas from their Gippsland Basin joint operations from Jan. 1, 2019.
BHP and Exxon each own 50 percent of the Gippsland Basin joint venture.
The Australian competition watchdog had said last year that it sought to break up the marketing joint venture between ExxonMobil Corp and BHP Billiton to help boost competition in the eastern Australian gas market.
ACCC investigated the companies' joint marketing arrangements over the period from late 2013 to 2015.
(Reporting by Rushil Dutta in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Cooney and Stephen Coates)