While municipal utilities remain unconvinced that the voluntary system of reporting natural gas prices to publications is sufficient, they filed recommendations with FERC last Tuesday for improvements to the voluntary system in the absence of a mandatory reporting system (PL03-3).

“At the current time we do not believe that industry has provided enough information to determine if reporting has truly increased; and if so, by how much reporting has increased or whether these supposed increases ares sufficient to repair the index system,” the Coalition for Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (EMIT) told FERC.

The group is composed of the American Public Gas Association, the American Public Power Association, Apache Corp., the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Joining in the filing was the Industrial Energy Consumers of America.

The group noted positive reports from the Market Price Reporting Action Committee (MPRAC), an industry coalition including energy companies and a number of gas and power associations, price publishers, electronic exchanges and voice brokers (see NGI, March 15). It also said it was aware that FERC was conducting a new survey of companies to determine participation in price reporting. But “our members remain concerned that a voluntary reporting scheme cannot guarantee continued improvements in reporting.”

EMIT went on to recommend that:

©Copyright 2004 Intelligence Press Inc. Allrights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republishedor redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without priorwritten consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.