With longer-term concerns about price and availability, the Nevada Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is planning to hold a half-day workshop on natural gas issues, probably in October, according to a PUC spokesperson. It most likely will be held in Las Vegas or in Reno/Carson City at the headquarters of the three-member regulatory panel.

PUC Chair Jo Ann Kelly is concerned about what the wholesale gas market for Nevada is going to look like after 2010. “She has some concerns that because of transmission pipeline constraints and deliveries [from the Rockies] moving easterly rather than to the west that the state could be in some level of discomfort,” said a PUC spokesperson.

Kelly wants to get some of the policy makers in the utility companies and some of the suppliers together just to discuss what the gas situation in the region, and more particularly the state, is going to look like in the long term.

“We expect to nail down some of the details in the next few weeks in terms of when it is going to be and who is going to be there,” the spokesperson said. “It will probably be in October sometime.”

Nevada’s two principal interstate sources of gas supplies come from Kern River Gas Transmission and Northwest Pipeline. Although it was reported that potential supplies from the proposed (and under construction) liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals on the West Coast also were going to be part of the discussions, the PUC spokesperson downplayed that part of the West’s future gas mix.

“The PUC had a presentation here [in Carson City in August], and during that all of the various options of where Nevada’s gas supplies would come from in the future were very generally kicked around.,” the spokesperson said. “There were very few specifics, just the fact that there are some proposed [LNG] terminals, and it would be nice if Nevada could get a piece of that.”

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