William Hederman, chief of FERC’s Office of Market Oversight and Investigations (OMOI), on Wednesday said that the agency has received a healthy response to a recent survey sent out to approximately 300 natural gas and electric wholesale suppliers to collect information about the companies’ price reporting practices and determine whether they are complying with the standards that were designed by the agency to thwart future abuses.

OMOI in September said the survey was part of its monitoring efforts to gauge the level of reporting to index developers and the adherence to a July policy statement, which introduced new industry standards for the reporting of prices on energy trades (see Daily GPI, Sept. 29). In the policy statement, the Commission supported voluntary reporting of energy trade information to price indexes, but it warned it would consider mandating price reporting if the standards were not widely adopted by industry.

The two-part survey, which was sent to producers, generators, marketers, electric and gas distributors and industrial energy consumers, quizzed the parties about their price reporting activities before and after the July 24 policy statement. Responses to the survey were due at the OMOI by Oct. 15.

At a press briefing following FERC’s regular agenda meeting on Wednesday, Hederman said, “We’ve got a very good response rate” to the survey, pegging that rate at around 80%.

FERC Chairman Pat Wood said that his agency needs some time to “thoughtfully look at” the various responses to the survey. A presentation related to the survey was scheduled to take place at Wednesday’s meeting, but was subsequently pulled from the agenda.

Hederman said that it was unlikely that FERC would take any additional action related to the survey prior to a Nov. 4 workshop scheduled to take place at the agency on market activity and price indicators.

The workshop will focus on characteristics of underlying markets that support price discovery, according to a FERC notice for the meeting. FERC said the workshop is related to natural gas price formation conferences that have been held previously and its goal “is to get a better understanding of standard measurements of market activity and the reliability of price indicators.”

©Copyright 2003 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.