The long-time director of California’s General Services Department (GS), which makes the state’s bulk natural gas purchases, said Tuesday that he does not expect the GS gas-buying program to be affected by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s statewide plan to “modernize” California’s purchasing efforts.

“From my understanding of the governor’s new program, we’re already doing what it calls for,” said Marshall Clark, director of California’s gas-buying program, which currently is operating under a three-year, 25 Bcf/year gas contract with BP that the department signed last year to run through mid-2006.

In announcing the state’s new effort to maximize its buying power as the nation’s most populous state and one of the world’s largest economies, Gov. Schwarzenegger said the state’s current fiscal crisis calls for it “to take full advantage of [its] purchasing power to get the best service and best products for the best price. We will save millions of dollars just by being smarter about how we buy things.”

Clark argued that in the natural gas buying sector California is already doing this.

As part of the long-range deal with BP, California has the right to contract for up to 12.5 Bcf annually with other suppliers for amounts that BP, the prime contractor, fails to deliver. As a contingency, the state runs requests for bids periodically for these back-up supplies, and it currently is adding two still anonymous bidders to the list along with two other firms (Cook Inlet and BP) that have signed deals for the contingency supplies.

California’s gas-buying program supplies major facilities throughout the state, including some hospitals, prisons, state universities, college campuses and others, along with a whole host of local and county governments scattered around the state.

The governor’s office said the General Services Department in conjunction with the California Performance Review started by Schwarzenegger has awarded a three-year contract to American Management Systems (AMS), a strategic management firm. AMS will work with the GS to determine what goods and services are currently required by the state agencies, and “consolidate those purchases to achieve high-volume discounts and flexibility from vendors.”

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