Three Wisconsin natural gas and power utilities have accused ANR Pipeline of violating a 2004 settlement and its tariff by failing to notify them of operational changes on the pipeline’s system that could have relieved them of long-held receipt obligations on ANR at Marshfield, WI.

In a Section 5 complaint filed at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on March 26, affiliates Wisconsin Electric Power Co. and Wisconsin Gas LLC, as well as Wisconsin Public Service Corp., claimed that ANR “violated both the letter and the spirit” of its October 2004 settlement (Marshfield settlement) with certain shippers and its tariff changes to implement the settlement.

The settlement bound ANR shippers to accept up to 101,135 Dth/d of volumes from Viking Gas Transmission at Marshfield for flow into ANR when needed; it also obligated ANR, in turn, to notify the Marshfield shippers if any operational changes affecting the need for that capacity at Marshfield occurred on its system.

“ANR has failed to provide notice to the Marshfield shippers of operational flow changes that occurred on its system within the means…of its tariff. ANR has also violated the Marshfield settlement and…its tariff by selling to third parties capacity that should have been used to afford the Marshfield shippers the right to reduce their obligation at Marshfield,” the Wisconsin utilities said.

“ANR should be required to relieve the complainants of their Marshfield receipts obligations by allowing them to convert their respective portions of at least 91,080 Dth/d of service MDQ [maximum daily quantity] under their Marshfield resolution contracts to pro forma contracts service, including changing primary points of receipts from Marshfield to points within the Joliet Hub area or any other existing receipt points on ANR’s system with available capacity on a path to ANR’s system serving Wisconsin, at no costs to the Marshfield shippers,” they said. The utilities are seeking fast-track processing of the complaint.

In 1992 FERC accepted a “temporary fix” to ANR’s tariff that allowed for the implementation of the Marshfield settlement with the Marshfield shippers and required the shippers, among other things, to deliver gas from the interconnecting Viking Gas into ANR at Marshfield if additional volumes were needed. “This Band-Aid is still in place nearly 18 years after Order 636 was adopted,” the Wisconsin utilities told FERC.

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