FERC on Thursday issued a final rule eliminating duplicative storage reporting requirements for interstate and intrastate natural gas pipelines. This will save the industry an estimated $400,000 annually, according to the agency.

The final rule, which comes four months after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission adopted a proposed rule, would nix the semi-annual reporting requirements for interstate and intrastate pipeline storage providers that conduct transactions under the Natural Gas Act and Section 311 of the Natural Gas Policy Act (NGPA) (see Daily GPI, Sept. 16, 2011). The final rule is scheduled to take effect 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.

In the order, FERC concluded that information from other sources, such as daily website postings, overlaps with the information required in the semi-annual reports [RM11-4]. It found that the information provided price transparency so that shippers were able to make informed purchasing decisions and allowed shippers and FERC to monitor transactions for evidence of possible abuse of market power.

In 2010 the Commission issued a notice of inquiry to examine whether and how the semi-annual storage reports required of both interstate and intrastate pipelines should be modified. Commission regulations at the time required interstate, intrastate and Hinshaw pipelines to file semi-annual storage reports at the end of each storage injection and withdrawal season.

FERC adopted the existing semi-annual storage reporting requirements for both interstate and intrastate pipelines in 1992, and since then it has added other reporting requirements for both sets of pipelines, which mandate that they post most of the same information as is included in the semi-annual storage reports.

For example, in May 2010 the Commission issued Order 735 requiring pipelines subject to Section 311 of the NGPA and Hinshaw pipelines to report more transportation and storage transaction data than they previously did and to do so four times annually (see Daily GPI, May 21, 2010). The quarterly reports for Section 311 and Hinshaw pipelines contained most of the same information as did their semi-annual reports.

Section 311 intrastate pipelines can perform interstate service without becoming subject to the Commission’s NGA jurisdiction. A pipeline is a Hinshaw pipeline if it receives natural gas at or within its state boundaries and the gas is entirely consumed within that state.

Several natural gas trade associations, including the American Gas Association, Natural Gas Supply Association and the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, supported the Commission’s decision to eliminate the duplicative storage reporting requirements.

©Copyright 2012Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.