ANR Pipeline proposes to establish two new transportationservices to meet the hourly natural gas demands of powergenerators, primarily in the Midwest market.

The proposed new services, FTS-3 and ITS-3, would providegenerators and other shippers with “variable hourly flow rights,short-notice commencement and shutdown of service, and flexibilityto manage variances between receipts and deliveries,” ANR said inseeking a revision to its tariff [RP00-30]. It plans to make theservices available to electric generation shippers and to end-users(or shippers serving end-users) that are connected to ANR’smainline and have installed equipment needed to monitor hourlyflows.

ANR’s proposal follows a similar request for hourly flow serviceby Reliant Energy Gas Transmission Co. earlier this year, which wasapproved by FERC.

Under the proposed FTS-3 rate schedule, generators would selecta desired contractual right or maximum daily quantity (MDQ) on ANR.They “would also select a maximum hourly quantity (MHQ), whichcould be set at no less than 1/24th of the MDQ and no greater than¬ of the MDQ. This MHQ would define the shipper’s right for amaximum quantity that ANR would be obligated to deliver in any onehour during the gas day,” according to ANR’s filing. At themaximum, a shipper could receive its entire daily entitlement infour hours under ANR’s proposal..

As for ITS-3 service, shippers would not be entitled to reservean hourly quantity. “However, on a best-efforts basis, ANR willattempt to flow the daily nomination at an hourly flow ratedesignated by the shipper as part of its nomination,” the CoastalCorp. pipeline said.

ANR Pipeline said its proposed FTS-3 transportation servicewould not degrade the firm primary service rights of its existingcustomers. “As it does with any request for firm service, ANR willundertake a capacity analysis upon receiving requests for serviceunder rate schedule FTS-3. If ANR determines that sufficientcapacity is available, without diminishing its ability to satisfyits existing firm contractual obligations, only then will it agreeto provide service under rate schedule FTS-3,” it told FERC.

Although the proposed services are derived from ANR’s currentlyeffective firm rates, the pipeline noted that the new services-ifapproved by FERC-would be priced higher on a unit basis than itsother transportation-based services to reflect the “additionalfeatures and flexibility” underlying these services. The unitcharge will rise in proportion to the rate of hourly flow.

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