NGI Archives | NGI All News Access
Industry Unites to Oppose EDI Rule
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has succeeded incontriving an order (No. 587-G) that the natural gas industryalmost universally opposes, which is not that rare. What is rare,however, is the unanimity among pipelines, distributors, producersand end users on what is wrong with the Commission’s mandate thatall pipeline transactions be conducted over the Internet byelectronic data interchange (EDI) by June 1, 1999.
Specifically the associations – Interstate Natural Gas, AmericanGas, American Public Gas, Natural Gas Supply and end users led byThe Process Gas Consumers – believe FERC went too far in requiringthe use of EDI for all transactions. They also believe the switchto the Internet from the pipelines individual electronic bulletinboards cannot be accomplished in the time set. Opponents said thatwhile EDI is valuable for large volumes of transactions, it imposesa costly and unnecessary burden on small companies with fewtransactions. Also, it sacrifices interactive functions such asreceipt of real-time data, on-line contracting and capacityauctions.
The distributors and end users favor the use of interactive websites, but said the task of converting EBBs to standardized websites is too large to be accomplished at the same time the naturalgas industry along with the rest of the nation is trying to dealwith the electronic “year 2000” problem. They suggest the webdeadline be put back a year to June 1, 2000.
©Copyright 1998 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. Thepreceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, inwhole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent ofIntelligence Press,Inc.
© 2024 Natural Gas Intelligence. All rights reserved.
ISSN © 1532-1231 | ISSN © 2577-9877 |