The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission cut a break last week to transporters and sellers of natural gas to the California market. It voted not to extend an initiative that requires them to report extensive information on their sales’ prices and volumes on a monthly basis.

The Commission imposed the requirement last July in an attempt to bring gas prices in the western state in line with the rest of the nation. The high gas prices in California have all but disappeared since then, a FERC staff member said, ending the need for the reporting requirement.

When FERC first proposed the reporting requirement last May, the spot price for natural gas in California ranged between $11.79 and $18.80, while the price range in all other markets was between $4 and $7, FERC said in its notice of decision (RM01-9). Currently, the spot gas price at the California border is less than $3. “The crisis which led the Commission to impose the reporting requirement no longer exists.”

The reporting requirement — which targeted all sellers of gas along with interstate pipelines and local distribution companies (LDCs) that serve the California market — expired on Jan. 31. FERC’s previous plan to extend it until Sept. 30, 2002 has been nixed.

“A preliminary analysis of the data furnished to date indicates that the data for the six-month period ending Jan. 31, 2002 will provide [FERC with] information about the California market, as well as some guidance on how to improve data collection and processing should another emergency re-occur,” the notice said.

It further revealed that FERC currently is undertaking a “comprehensive review” of the information that it will need to collect to monitor energy markets nationwide. Any further reporting requirement needed for California would be “best developed as part of this comprehensive review” of all energy markets, the notice said.

The Commission imposed the reporting requirement on California sellers last summer in response to pressure from Capitol Hill lawmakers about the high gas prices in the state. Marketers and other industry participants complained that the reporting initiative wasn’t necessary, and that FERC had overstepped its jurisdiction.

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