U-13365:Xcel Energy (NSP-W) Gas Transportation Tariffs:

• September 16, 2002, the Commission in its Order Approving Settlement Agreement (reference MPSC Orders page, U-13365 order) authorized NSP-W to incorporate into its Commission approved gas rate book the gas transportation tariff attached. Prior to issuance of this Commission order NSP-W did not offer transportation service but did provide sales service to two customers, Bessemer Plywood and Grand View Hospital, through special contracts that were not part of the tariffed sales service. The transportation service is available on an interruptible basis to all commercial and industrial customers who agree to: 1) curtail use of gas whenever requested by the Company, 2) shall have fuel requirements of 25,000 therms per year, or more, 3) execute a service agreement with the Company detailing terms, nomination requirements, etc. Such customers are subject to the following charges and terms and conditions of service:
  • Customer Charge per month $40.00
  • Daily Metering Charge per month $25.00
  • Administrative Charge per month $25.00
  • Distribution Charge per therm $0.0330
  • Unauthorized Use Penalties: If customer fails to curtail his use of gas when requested by the Company any volume of gas used in excess of the authorized volume shall be charged at the highest price reported during the curtailment period for NNG receipt point at Ventura or Demarcation as reported by Gas Daily, plus $1.00 per therm. Such gas shall be considered a sale of gas.
  • Daily Balancing - Daily Nominations: There is no additional charge for this service for imbalances up to plus or minus 5% of customers' nominated volume. Customers are assessed a Daily Variance charge of $0.0072 per therm for imbalances greater than 5% and up to 10%. Imbalances greater than 10% are assessed a Daily Variance charge of $0.1000 per therm.
  • Daily Imbalance Pool: Customers must choose a pool - NSP pool or a Customer/Third Party Pool.
  • Daily Balancing - Monthly Nomination Provision: Instead of Daily Balancing, customers may choose monthly nominations and pay $0.0030 per therm of use. Under this provision customers are not subject to Daily nomination fees.
  • Monthly Balancing Provision: At the end of the month each customer is subject to a cashout of its monthly imbalances. Imbalances within plus or minus 5% of the nominated amount are bought or sold at the Market Cost of Gas. Positive Imbalances greater than 5% of the nominated volumes are purchased at 0.8 times the market cost of gas, and Negative Imbalances are sold at 1.2 times the market cost of gas.
  • All customers are required to have telemetering.
  • The following backup service are, also, available:
    • Backup Capacity Service.
    • Backup Supply Service.
    • Backup Constraint Day Service - $0.50 per therm, plus incremental cost of gas supplies for the period involved.
      

 
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• February 5, 2001, the Commission in its Order Approving Application (reference MPSC Orders page, U-12741 order) authorized Wisconsin Public Service Corporation (WPS) to incorporate into its Commission approved gas rate book the gas transportation tariffs attached. Prior to this order WPS provided transportation service to eleven customers in Michigan's upper peninsula, in the vicinity of the City of Menominee, under the provisions of 1929 PA 9, MCL 478.101 (see MCL for Act 9 of 1929). The terms and conditions of service under the new Gas Transportation Service, Schedules GT through GT-18, incorporated the terms and conditions of service and rates which were provided under the individual Act 9 transportation contracts. Pursuant to the Commission's order the Gas Transportation Service tariffs become effective April 1, 2001. Highlights of the tariff are as follows:
  • RATES:

    	Cg-TM (Up to 10,000 therms per year)		$
    	Monthly Customer Charge		$ 147.50
    	Rate per therm		0.08514
    	Cg-TL (10,001 to 1,800,000 therms per year)		$
    	Monthly Customer Charge		212.00
    	Rate per therm		0.06214
    	Cg-TSL (over 1,800,000 therms per year)		$
    	Monthly Customer Charge		212.00
    	Rate per therm		0.03000
    	Peak Day Backup Service and Annual Supply Backup Service		$
    	Demand Charge
    		Per therm of Demand Per Month (Annual Option)	$0.58685
    		Per therm of Demand Per Month (Seasonal Option)	$0.66893
    	Commodity Charge
    		City Gate Rate Per Therm	$0.47351
    	Note: Peak Day Backup Service rates are established in the Company's annual GCR Plan case filed with the MPSC (see GCR Factor status).

• Daily Balancing -Customers are required to balance their usage on a daily basis.
• Monthly Balancing - Imbalances will be cashed-out at the end of the month.
• Pooling - Customers may enter into to pools for purposes of balancing.
• Daily Balancing Service is available from the Company.
• Unauthorized Gas Usage Charges - A charge of at least $2.00 per therm will be assessed for all unauthorized gas use. If the Company incurs pipeline charges greater than $2.00 per therm, then the Company will charge $10.00 per therm plus any incremental costs incurred due to the unauthorized use of gas.

 
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• October 29, 1997, the Commission in its Opinion and Order (reference MPSC Orders page, U-11220 order, Press Releases page, and 10/29/97 Press Release) approving the merger of the rates and tariffs of Southeastern Michigan Gas Company and Michigan Gas Company, jointly referred to as SEMCO Energy Gas Company (SEMCO). In that order the Commission established two gas transportation tariffs for end users: Transportation Service (TR-1, TR-2, and TR-3) and Aggregated Transportation Service (ATS).
• Transportation Service (TR-1, TR-2, and TR-3) tariff contained the following rates and provisions:

Transportation Charges:	TR-1	TR-2	TR-3
Monthly Customer Charge	$300	$900	$2,900
Monthly Remote Meter Charge	$75	$75	$75
Peak (Nov -Mar) Charge per Dth	$0.6863	$0.5430	$0.4613
Off-peak (Apr - Oct) Charge per Dth	$0.5295	$0.3948	$0.3132

• Daily Balancing Requirement:

	Firm Balancing Charge per Dth of gas delivered:	$0.0344
	Interruptible Balancing Charge per Dth:	$0.1000
	[This is the first daily balancing requirement approved by the Commission]

• Monthly Cash-out: Positive and negative monthly imbalances less than 5% of the gas delivered in the month will rollover to the next month. SEMCO will cashout positive and negative imbalances greater than 5% of gas delivered during the month at indexed prices. This provision replaces the Unauthorized Gas Usage Charge.
• Gas-in-Kind: SEMCO shall retain .98% of all gas received to compensate it for the company-use and lost-and-unaccounted-for gas.
• Aggregation of Accounts Option: Customers receiving gas at multiple facilities under common ownership may elect to aggregate the quantities of gas supplied to such facilities under the following conditions: a) customer designates one account as a master account on the transportation service tariff, b) General Service Rate accounts qualify as subsidiary accounts that may aggregate with the master account, c) master account is billed as a transportation account, the subsidiary accounts are treated as transportation accounts except they pay the General Service Rate customer charge and distribution charge.
• Transportation Standards of Conduct were adopted.
• No assignment of upstream pipeline capacity.
• All customers are eligible to participate in the transportation program.

 
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• October 31, 1995 MGU filed an application requesting authority to increase its rates and revise its transportation tariffs, among other things.
• March 27, 1997 the Commission issued its Opinion and Order (reference MPSC Orders page, U-10960 order, U-10960 order denying rehearing, Press Releases page, and 3/27/97 Press Release) in the rate case approving revisions to MGU's transportation tariffs. MGU's request for a daily balancing provision was denied, but the transportation tariff was restructured, and included the following features:
  • All customers are eligible to participate in the transportation program.
  • Rate classes TR-1, TR-2, and TR-3 were established. Breakeven point between TR-1 and TR-2 was set at 50,000 Mcf per year. Breakeven point between TR-2 and TR-3 is set at 225,000 Mcf.

Transportation Charges:	TR-1	TR-2	TR-3
Monthly Customer Charge	$250	$1,160	$2,170
Administrative Fee	$450	$450	$450
Monthly Remote Meter Charge	$120	$120	$120
Peak (Nov -Mar) Charge per Dth	$0.6611	$0.4428	$0.3890
Off-peak (APR - Oct) Charge per Dth	$0.5111	$0.2928	$0.2390

• Monthly Load Balancing: Customers may store up to 5% of their ACQ without additional charge - Authorized Tolerance Level (ATL).
• Monthly Cashout of Positive and Negative imbalances. Positive and negative imbalances up to 5% of the monthly nomination were cashed-out at the average MichCon City Gate Index for Large End-Users for that month. Positive imbalances above 5% of monthly nominations were cashed-out at the Low price for the MichCon City Gate Index, and negative imbalances were cashed out at the High price for the MichCon City Gate Index for Large End-Users. This feature eliminated the need for an unauthorized gas usage charge.
• Imbalance Paper Pooling Option: Any customer or customer's agent with multiple deliveries at any receipt point could pool those deliveries at that same receipt point.
• Gas In Kind of 0.68% would be withheld to compensate the Company for lost and unaccounted for gas and company use gas.
• No provision to allow customers to purchase system supply gas, other than the monthly cashout provision.

 
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• December 29, 1994 Consumers requested rate relief and tariff revisions.
• March 11, 1996, the Commission issued its final order (reference MPSC Orders page, U-10755 Order, U-10755 Order denying rehearing) which, among other things provided:
  • Transportation tariffs T-1 and T-2 were split to create Rates ST-1 and ST-2 for transportation customers using less than 100,000 Mcf per year, and Rates LT-1 and LT-2 for transportation customers using more than 100,000 Mcf per year.
  • ST and LT rates retained the same basic provision and rate structure as the predecessor tariffs including:

	ST	LT
Monthly Customer Charge	$750	$1,350

• Monthly Load Balancing (Storage): Customers are still entitled to store up to 8.5% of ACQ (Authorized Tolerance Level), but injections were restricted to 1.43% of ACQ during September and October and withdrawals were restricted to 3% of ACQ during November through March of each year. Gas in storage above the ATL ( 8.5% of ACQ) will be charged a storage rate of $0.25 per Mcf, or Consumers may require the customer to reduce its balance to ATL.
• System Supply Entitlement Charge option was retained, although seldom used.
• Use and Loss: Gas in Kind was set at 1.03% of gas delivered.
• Aggregation of Accounts provision was adopted. Option A allowed contiguous facilities, under a common ownership, and operated as a unitary enterprise to be treated as a single account for billing purposes. This meant that only one customer charge would be applied. Option B allowed multiple facilities under a common ownership to aggregate the gas supplied to the facilities for billing purposes if; one of the facilities, designated as the master account, would be served under a transportation tariff, and the remaining facilities, designated as subsidiary accounts, were taking service under a sales tariff. The subsidiary accounts would be billed as sales accounts, excluding the GCR Factor. Remote metering was not required for any of the accounts.
• Contract Storage Rate tariff was approved to allow customers to contract for additional storage service as they needed it. The rate was $300 per month plus a demand and commodity charge from $0.20 per Mcf up to $1.50 per Mcf as negotiated between the Consumers and the customer.
  

 
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  U-10150: Michigan Consolidated Gas Company Rate Case:

• September 1, 1992 MichCon requested rate relief and tariff revisions.
• October 28, 1993 the Commission issued its final order (reference MPSC Orders page, U-10150 Order, U-10150 order denying rehearing) in the rate case, which included the following:
  • Transportation tariffs T-1 and T-2 were split to create Rates ST-1 and ST-2 for transportation customers using less than 100,000 Mcf per year, and Rates LT-1 and LT-2 for transportation customers using more than 100,000 Mcf per year.

  ST and LT rates retained the same basic provision and rate structure as the predecessor tariffs including:

	ST	LT
Monthly Customer Charge	$1,300	$2,100

• Monthly Load Balancing (Storage): Customers are still entitled to store up to 10% of ACQ, but injections were restricted to 1.43% of ACQ during September and October and withdrawals were restricted to 3% of ACQ during November through March of each year. Gas in storage above 10% of ACQ will be charged a storage rate of $0.25 per Mcf, or MichCon may require the customer to reduce its balance to 10% of ACQ.
• System Supply Entitlement Charge option was eliminated.
• Use and Loss: Gas in Kind was reduced from 1.78% to 0.9% of gas delivered.
• Contract Storage Rate tariff was approved to allow customers to contract for additional storage service as they needed it. The rate was $300 per month plus a demand and commodity charge up to $1.50 per Mcf as negotiated between the MichCon and the customer. [FERC required that the ceiling on this rate be set at the cost of service since MichCon could offer this to interstate customers]