Tennessee Gas Pipeline is violating the Negotiated Rates Policystatement in attempting to keep secret rollover agreements with twocustomers to extend capacity contracts for three to four yearsbeyond their November, 2000 expiration date, according to a protestfrom producer shippers. And the shippers fear there may be othersin the near future because much of Tennessee’s capacity is undercontracts expiring Nov. 1, 2000 which require notification a yearin advance of the deadline.

Tennessee filed only part of the agreements made withEnergyNorth Natural Gas (RP96-312-019) and the City of Holyoke Gas& Electric Dept. (RP96-312-018), saying it wanted to keepconfidential the letter agreements it signed with the twocompanies. The pipeline said the customer agreements are part of alarge recontracting effort to encourage extensions of firm service.Tennessee appears be concerned that public disclosure of the letteragreements might hamper its negotiating position with othercustomers, Indicated Shippers said.

However, the purpose of the Negotiated Rates Policy statement isto provide “transparency” so recourse shippers can determinewhether a pipeline has granted an undue preference or engaged inundue discrimination. Also a review would allow other shippers thatbelieve they are similarly situated to request the same deal, asthe policy statement provides. The shippers asked FERC to eitherreject Tennessee’s filings or require it to provide public accessto the letter agreements.

Ellen Beswick

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