The American Public Gas Association (APGA) sent a letter to FERC Chairman Pat Wood this week applauding the Commission’s action on Monday against three companies who violated FERC’s standards of conduct by allowing employees to share nonpublic, commercially sensitive gas storage information with affiliates and certain customers.

FERC approved separate settlements with subsidiaries of Dominion Resources Inc., Nicor Inc. and NiSource Inc., and required them to pay a total of $8.1 million in civil penalties and customer refunds to resolve charges that they provided preferential access to market-sensitive storage information (see Daily GPI, Aug. 3). The nonpublic information had commercial value because it helped traders anticipate gas storage volumes, which affect gas prices and operational decisions, the agency noted.

FERC also scheduled a technical conference for Sept. 28 to investigate how the industry currently reports gas storage inventory information and to discuss possibly forcing pipelines to publicly disclose more of their storage data to provide greater transparency and prevent improper exchanges of storage-related information.

“The Commission took important and forceful steps this week to improve the fairness and effectiveness of the competitive natural gas market,” said APGA President Bert Kalisch. “Through this successful investigation by the Office of Market Oversight and Investigations (OMOI), it is again made clear that some market participants are willing to obtain and exploit nonpublic information to gain a competitive advantage in the energy market.”

Under the separate settlements Monday, Dominion Transmission Inc., Dominion Resources and Dominion Energy Clearinghouse agreed to refund $4.5 million to storage customers and pay a $500,000 civil penalty. NiSource’s Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. agreed to pay a civil penalty of $2.5 million, while Nicor’s Northern Illinois Gas Co. consented to pay a civil penalty of $600,000.

APGA also said it supports the Commission’s plans for a technical conference on the industry’s access to storage information and FERC’s interest in having pipeline companies make more storage data public. “For several years, APGA has observed the market’s often exaggerated reaction to the EIA weekly storage report, and accordingly has advocated for improvements in the weekly survey — including issuance of more timely production data (which is currently under consideration by EIA).

“APGA agrees with the Commission that ‘the bearing that storage inventories appear to have on commodity markets and pipeline operations counsel in favor of more complete and consistent and comprehensible posting by pipeline companies of their storage inventories than the Commission currently requires.'”

APGA noted that public gas companies rely heavily on publicly available storage and pricing information. It is critical, APGA said, that everyone in the industry has “simultaneous and timely access to storage information in order to diminish unwarranted market volatility and the incentive for bad actors to financially gain from early access to such data.”

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