Transparency Provisions of Section 23 of the Natural Gas Act

In this Order Granting Clarification, the Commission addresses pending requests to clarify Form No. 552, under which natural gas market participants must annually report information regarding physical natural gas transactions that use an index or that contribute to or may contribute to the formation of a gas index. Order No. 704 required market participants to file these reports in order to provide greater transparency concerning the use of indices to price natural gas and how well index prices reflect market forces. Order No. 704-C revises Form No. 552 so as to exempt from reporting any unexercised options to take gas under a take-or-release contract; clarify the definition of exempt unprocessed natural gas transactions as those involving gas that is both not yet processed (to separate and recover natural gas liquids), and still upstream of a processing facility; exempt from reporting cash-out and imbalance transactions, since they were burdensome to report and provided little market information; strike the form's references to the blanket sales certificates issued under Sec. 284.402 or Sec. 284.284, since they were burdensome to report and provided little market information, so as to also exempt small entities who were obligated to report solely by virtue of possessing a blanket sales certificate; and make several non- substantive modifications to Form No. 552 in an effort to make it more user-friendly.