“Gas Producers cannot justify the expense of implementing[electronic data interchange] on all pipelines because ofinsufficient volumes on any particular pipeline,” the Natural GasSupply Association said last week in opposing FERC’s mandate foracross the board implementation of EDI by June 1, 1999.

“EDI is best suited to high volume communications for amultitude of individual transactions taking place on a singlepipeline, when both the transactional data sets and the underlyingbusiness practices have been standardized on all pipelines,” theproducers said. They requested rehearing of the Commission’s Order587-G issued April 16. NGSA said it supported the goal of havingall pipelines conduct all business using the public Internet andInternet protocols, but said it would not be possible to do it in ayear. Pipelines currently operate their own electronic bulletinboards and should continue to do so until replacement systems arefully tested.

NGSA said EDI is not widely used because pipeline practices arenot sufficiently standardized to efficiently use a standardizedcode and “parties have found that it takes many months of testingwith each individual trading partner to get to the production phasefor a particular transaction.”

At present the industry and the Gas Industry Standards Board(GISB) are working to transition the current EBBs to interactiveInternet web sites. “EDI should be considered as supplement to theinteractive web site and not the only mode of communication to dobusiness with pipelines.”

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