A group of six energy trade associations, a broad coalition of producers, consumers and utilities and the Committee of Chief Risk Officers (CCRO) late Monday submitted a comprehensive proposal identifying the key natural gas price reporting issues that it reached consensus on, as well as the issues on which agreement was not achieved.

However, agreement on three controversial issues eluded the eight groups. They could not an accord on whether there should be a single or multiple collector/developer of price index information, mandatory or voluntary reporting by all buyers and sellers of natural gas, and whether companies should be required to submit counterparty information to index developers.

The proposal appeared to focus mainly on the collectors of gas price index information. Those entities (or entity) must adopt a corporate code of ethics and to make it available to the public; disclose price collection and disseminating methodology; verify price data from the providers of the data through methods such as matching buys and sells, and follow up with companies in the event of any discrepancies; have sufficient monitoring and surveillance systems in place to identify quickly any attempts at price manipulation; notify FERC if it’s unclear whether erroneous information was supplied intentionally; submit an annual certified audit to ensure compliance; and provide otherwise confidential data to FERC, or another federal regulatory agency, if it is requested for investigative purposes.

Agreeing to the proposal were the American Gas Association, Independent Petroleum Association of America, Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, Natural Gas Supply Association, National Energy Marketers Association, Process Gas Consumers Group, the Coalition of Energy Market Integrity and Transparency and the CCRO.

The consensus proposal is expected to be a hot topic at FERC’s technical conference on price indexes Tuesday.

As for companies and others that submit gas index information, the proposal requires them to adopt a corporate code of ethics as well, and make it available to the public; prohibit traders from reporting index information; provide data on all “reportable” transactions (these include bilateral, arms-length transactions between non-affiliate companies in the physical cash markets); report each transaction separately, providing information on price, volume, buy/sell indicator, delivery/receipt location, transaction date and term (next day or next month); and submit to an annual certified audit of the process used to report gas transactions.

The groups further agreed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or other federal regulatory agencies, could conduct “surveillance” of the price-reporting activities, holding hearings and conferences on market performance, and investigate if needed.

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