The Omnibus Decision (07-12-019) allows SoCalGas/SDG&E to implement a range of revisions to their natural gas operations and offer new services for their core and unbundled storage services. Information on the new services are listed below and described in more detail in subsequent sections.
5th Nomination Cycle
Effective for April 1, 2009, a 5th nomination cycle (Intraday 3) will be available to help customers balance their deliveries with their usage. SoCalGas will only accept firm nominations related to the injection of existing flowing supplies into a storage account or for firm nominations relating to the withdrawal of gas in storage to meet a customer’s usage for that gas day. This will be available each day, including OFO days.
Intraday 3 nominations must be submitted by 9:00 p.m. (PCT) on the flow date. A 15 minute deadline extension will be honored, if requested. Physical flow of this gas will be effective at 11:00 p.m. (PCT).
Interruptible Storage Injection and Withdrawal
Beginning on April 1, 2009, customers may bid for interruptible storage injection and withdrawal rights on a daily basis. By obtaining interruptible injection rights, a storage customer may increase the likelihood of being allocated a portion of unused storage injection capacity when an Operational Flow Order has been declared. In addition, interruptible withdrawal rights may be used during curtailments, and during the Winter Balancing 70% balancing regime, when interruptible storage withdrawal limits are imposed. Interruptible withdrawals are not counted toward the minimum delivery requirements while the Winter Delivery Rules are in effect. Interruptible storage nominations will remain unrestricted during normal operating conditions.
All storage customers will be given access to a new web site which will allow them to bid on interruptible rights for any flow date. The bid deadline will be prior to flow, at a time specified on the site. Bidders will be able to see the current bids - volume and price - in an open bid format. After bidding is closed, a price-based priority queue will be established to allocate the use of interruptible rights. The priority queue will be displayed on the web site after the bidding is closed, and each customer will be able to see their position in the queue. Customers will only pay for the actual interruptible volume that is scheduled.
Secondary Market for Storage Rights
The Omnibus Decision authorized SoCalGas to establish new tariff Schedule G-SMT. This tariff allows customers holding firm storage rights to release all or a portion of those rights to any creditworthy party in the secondary market through SoCalGas’ Electronic Bulletin Board (EBB). Until the full implementation of this service via the EBB, scheduled for late 2009, SoCalGas will offer a manual processing of assignments of firm storage rights. The assignment can consist of all or part of a customer’s storage rights and/or all or part of the remaining contract term. Pre-requisites for this service are an executed Master Service Contract (MSC) and an executed MSC Schedule I.
Upon full implementation of the G-SMT tariff SoCalGas will post on its EBB a summary of the completed secondary market transactions, listing releasing party, acquiring party, amount of capacity, transaction price, and term of the release. These transactions will be posted the next business day following the completion of sale. SoCalGas will also post on the EBB all contracted firm storage capacity and the available unsubscribed storage capacity for sale. This information will be updated on a daily basis.
G-TBS Storage Transaction Postings
SoCalGas will post all G-TBS storage transactions on its EBB within one business day of execution, including the counterparty name, quantity of storage services contracted, contract prices and contract term.
Expanded Imbalance Trading Period
Effective April 1, 2009, the Imbalance Trading will now start on the 25th and end on the last day each month, except for February which starts on February 23.
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Enhanced Imbalance Trading Functionality
The Imbalance Trading functionality in the Envoy system will be enhanced to allow customers to post Open offers for an imbalance position. Customers will be able to bid on imbalance position offers and the seller will be able to select the winning bidder from the offers made. Available late 2009.
New ESP Balancing and Storage
Core Aggregation Transportation (CAT) ~ Storage
CAT storage is a part of the overall SoCalGas/SDG&E core storage requirements for winter reliability. The cost for storage is included in core customers’ transportation rates. As a result of the Omnibus decision, there will be several changes to the current storage processes for both SoCalGas and SDG&E Energy Service Providers (ESPs) serving CAT customers. These changes will be effective April 1, 2009.
- Each ESP will be assigned a prorata share of the total core inventory, injection and withdrawal rights, broken down by customer class percentages and the core's cold year demand forecast.
- The storage rights will be calculated on March 16, 2009 for the period April 1, 2009 through March 31, 2010. These rights will change only if the customer load changes by at least 10%.
- ESPs will manage their CAT storage rights through the Envoy EBB.
- ESPs will have one storage account for each utility they serve.
- ESPs may use their rights to inject or withdraw gas for their CAT storage throughout the year.
- ESPs may use imbalance trading as a means to move gas into or out of CAT storage.
- ESPs may use the Secondary Market to sell unused rights.
- Sale of CAT storage rights is recallable by SoCalGas and any offers placed on the secondary trading platform will be indentified as recallable.
- ESPs will continue to have month-end storage minimums for the months of November through March to meet SoCalGas’ storage requirements for core service reliability as well as to maintain minimum storage quantities to meet Abnormal Peak Day (APD) and cold year requirements.
- If an ESP does not meet minimum winter storage targets, the utilities will divert flowing supplies from the ESP’s deliveries and recall any necessary injection rights that may have been sold.
ESP Statements
Under Omnibus, the ESP statements from SoCalGas and SDG&E will show usage for the prior month.
Transition Period for SoCalGas ESPs
March 2009
- During the March imbalance trading period for January, ESPs must trade their storage by 3/28/2009.
- ESPs with storage inventory above their inventory rights must withdraw the difference during the March trading period.
April 2009
- ESPs will receive February invoice excluding storage.
- ESPs will begin using Envoy on April 1st to manage inventory, injection, withdrawal, storage rights.
May 2009
- ESPs will receive a both a March and April invoice. The March invoice will exclude storage information. The April invoice will include storage.
Transition Period for SDG&E ESPs
March 2009
- SDG&E will automatically manage storage for ESPs
- ESPs will be required to have a zero balance in storage by 03/31/09.
April 2009
- ESPs will begin using Envoy on April 1st to manage inventory, injection, withdrawal, storage rights.
- The Daily Contract Quantity (DCQ) will replace the Minimum Daily Quantity (MinDQ) and Maximum Daily Quantity (MDQ).
Shipper Imbalance
A shipper imbalance can occur when at the end of a scheduling day gas deliveries made to the SoCalGas system do not match quantities that were delivered off-system for a particular shipper. Off-system services are determined by the amount of physical gas flowing on system and are by displacement only. The shipper imbalance can only occur on the Off-System Delivery Contract (OSD).
Over Delivery Shipper Imbalance:
An over delivery shipper imbalance would occur when gas originating from a pipeline, a City Gate Pool, or Storage is confirmed on an OSD during the SoCalGas confirmation process off to PG&E but during on-system allocation process, deliveries from PG&E are reduced to SoCalGas. As a result the gas confirmed on the OSD cannot get scheduled to PG&E thereby creating an Over Delivery Shipper Imbalance.
Under Delivery Shipper Imbalance:
An under delivery shipper imbalance would occur when gas originating from a pipeline, a City Gate Pool, or Storage is confirmed during the SoCalGas confirmation process off to PG&E and is allocated but during a re-allocation, supplies from another pipeline are reduced. This would cause the gas being delivered to the OSD to be reduced; however, the gas being delivered to PG&E can no longer be reduced. This results in an Under Delivery Shipper Imbalance.
Curing a Shipper Imbalance:
The Shipper Imbalance will be tracked in the Shipper Imbalance tracking account G99. All Over Delivery Shipper Imbalances will be identified as positive amounts and all Under Delivery Imbalances will be identified as negative amounts in the G99 tracking account. The Shipper Imbalance will be cured by the OSD owner making a nomination into the G99 if they are trying to cure an Under Delivery Imbalance or a nomination out of the G99 in order to cure an Over Delivery Imbalance. SoCalGas will notify the shipper of its imbalance after the gas day is over. The shipper should clear this imbalance as soon as operationally feasible. Nominations can be added to Envoy during cycles 1 thru 4. The SoCalGas Gas Scheduler will confirm the nomination in ENVOY as either the supply or the market.
Hub Services – G-PAL
Effective July 2008, SoCalGas established new tariff G-PAL. This tariff offers interruptible gas parking and loaning services to any qualified creditworthy party. Gas parking is the temporary storage of gas on the SoCalGas system and gas loaning is the temporary lending of gas from the SoCalGas system. Rates for this service are negotiated on an individual transaction basis based on current market conditions. Pre-requisite’s for this service is an executed Master Services Contract (MSC) and MSC Schedule O.
As required by D.07-12-019, SoCalGas will post on a weekly basis at its EBB: net hub position, net volumes loaned and parked, withdrawal schedules for all hub volumes parked and repayment schedules for all hub volumes loaned.
Tariffs for New Services
OMNIBUS Decision
http://www.socalgas.com/regulatory/documents/a-06-08-026/omnifinal.pdf
Advice Letter 3818-A with tariffs
https://tariff.socalgas.com/regulatory/tariffs/tm2/pdf/3818-A.pdf
Presentations
- Imbalance Trading (PDF)
- Interruptible Storage Service (PDF)
- Interruptible Storage Service -- Updated (PDF)
- Scheduling (PDF)
- Scheduling -- Revised (PDF)
- ESP (CAT) Changes (PDF)
- Secondary Storage Trading (PDF)