Standards for Business Practices of Interstate Natural Gas Pipelines

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is amending its regulations governing standards for interstate pipeline business operations and communications to require that pipelines permit releasing shippers, as a condition of a capacity release, to recall released capacity and renominate such recalled capacity at each nomination opportunity. Recalls of released capacity will not be permitted to reduce (bump) already scheduled volumes for replacement shippers unless the replacement shippers are provided with at least one opportunity to rescheduled any bumped volumes, which is similar to the protection afforded interruptible shippers. This rule creates greater flexibility for firm capacity holders on interstate pipelines by synchronizing the Commission's regulation of recalled capacity with its standards for intra-day nominations. The rule also will enhance competition by freeing up capacity that otherwise would not be released and creating greater parity between scheduling of capacity release transactions and pipeline interruptible service.