If you thought a new pooling system on El Paso Natural Gas wouldbe approved in time for summer vacation, it looks like you may haveto sweat it out for another season. After more than a year of hairpulling scrutiny and debate, FERC has decided to reject El Paso’sMarch 16 filing for scheduling gas pooling transactions on itssystem and convene yet another technical conference on the complexmatter.

Last fall, the Commission agreed to allow El Paso to limitpooling transactions on its system to 10, including twomultidirectional transfers. It rejected linear pooling and insteadrequired El Paso to allow multi-directional pooling. El Pasocomplied but said it would have to create a ranking system.

El Paso’s proposed priority ranking method for gas poolingchains, in which chains are weighted by the number of transactionsin the chain, “may have merit,” the Commission said. “However, theproblem remains as to how this should be implemented.” A previoustechnical conference revealed the proposal is not well understoodby shippers.

“As proposed, El Paso would give some kind of greater priorityto shorter [transaction] chains over longer chains, but whatranking factors El Paso will use [has not been] provided,” FERCsaid. As a result, the Commission rejected the filing and decidedto give El Paso one more chance to explain its proposal at atechnical conference to be held within the next four months.

Rocco Canonica

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