Producers and industrial gas customers have filed petitions forreview of FERC’s latest revisions to the natural gas market, Orders637 and 637-A, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District ofColumbia (Case No. 00-1217) (see NGI, Feb. 14 and May 22)

Industrials joining in the review petition include the Process GasConsumers Group (PGC), American Iron and Steel Institute, GeorgiaIndustrial Group, Alcoa Inc., and United States Gypsum Co. Their mainproblem with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rule is that itlimits the application of the right-of-first-refusal (ROFR)requirements for pipelines to apply when customers’ long-term capacitycontracts expire. Although Order 637 retains the ROFR and itsfive-year matching cap, the Commission has narrowed the number ofshippers and transactions to which it applies and raised the maximumrate in some cases (see NGI, March 13).

Producers, including ExxonMobil, Amoco Energy Trading, AmocoProduction, Anadarko Petroleum, Burlington Resources Oil and Gas,Conoco, Marathon Oil, Shell Offshore, Texaco Natural Gas and TexacoE&P, are opposed to the centerpiece of the rule, the lifting ofthe rate caps on the short-term secondary market.

Ellen Beswick

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