The Gathering Storm

✍ Scribed by Benham, William T.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2008
• Weight: 508 KB
• Volume: 10
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0743-5665
• DOI: 10.1002/gas.3410100804

✦ Synopsis

The Gathering Storm od Serling would have loved gathering. R For years, this vital function has been the 'Twilight Zone" of the gas industry.

How does one define it? The Natural Gas Act does not. Is it such a vital link in the transmission system that the Commission cannot ignore its impact on achieving open access and therefore must actively regulate it? Or is the function diverse enough and competitive enough for the Commission to simply sit back and observe? Or maybe the Commission can do both, depending on the situation. Like the "Twilight Zone," the gathering function straddles the light and the dark.

Will Affect All Producers

Once a molecule of natural gas is produced, its first exposure to the joys of the U.S. regulatory system is its entry into a gathering system. This exposure is most pronounced when the molecule will traverse state boundaries, because gathering systems hooked into purely intrastate transmission facilities are not often actively regulated and are not the facilities subject to the current Commission debate anyway. In the interstate arena, there is almost no way to avoid having one's gas gathered, because it is rare indeed for an interstate transmission system to hook directly into a producing well. Thus, whatever eventuates from the Commission's current consideration of gathering issues will affect e o e ~y gas producer in this country, big or small, that wants to move its gas in interstate commerce. Producers, do I have your attention yet?

Gathering 101

Fundamentally, there are three types of gatherers. First, there are producers that also Wllllam 7' . Benham Is vlce presldent formgulatoryatim ofAmoco Productlon Company in Chlcago. He Is msponslble for regulatory andleglslat/w poky development at both the federal and state levels.