US agency to require companies to submit data for gas storage report

The Energy Information Administration will require companies to supply data for a new weekly gas storage report that will likely be unveiled this spring, US officials said Wednesday. It will replace one that the American Gas Association is discontinuing at the first of the year.

Nov. 14, 2001

2 min read

Maureen Lorenzetti
OGJ Online

WASHINGTON, DC, Nov. 14 --The US Energy Information Administration will require natural gas companies to supply data for a new weekly gas storage report that will likely be unveiled this spring, US officials said Wednesday.

EIA said it would take over the report after the American Gas Association announced it was discontinuing its own weekly gas report at the end of the year (OGJ Online, Oct. 12; Nov. 3, 2001).

EIA officials said they do not know when the agency will begin issuing the report. They have urged AGA to continue its survey through the winter heating season, which ends Mar. 30.

AGA has signaled it may work with EIA to ensure there are no lapses in coverage. It also called on EIA to preserve the current methodology of the report, now collected on a voluntary basis.

"Keep the process as simple as possible," said an AGA official.

But EIA officials say they plan to make reporting "more rigorous" and will insist on the same kind of mandatory reporting now required for the agency's weekly oil storage report.

"We want to stay consistent with the way we collect other data," an EIA official said. Agency officials declined to detail what additional data they may seek from companies, but stressed it would be kept confidential and would not endanger national security.

EIA said it is "unlikely" that a private company would try to duplicate the agency's gas storage report, although analysts say the gas market is large enough that traders would probably welcome a privately compiled weekly report.

"Right now it's looking like we'll be the only ones," the EIA official said.

Earlier this month, the Department of Energy noted that data from the AGA survey, which began in January 1994, provides the only weekly supply data available to the natural gas market. Traders look at changes in inventories to gauge supply and demand. In the oil market, traders can compare weekly storage reports by the American Petroleum Institute and EIA.

Contact Maureen Lorenzetti at [email protected]