Enstar files revised tariff with RCA

In compliance with a Regulatory Commission of Alaska order, Enstar Natural Gas Co. has filed a revised revenue requirement study and tariff for the shipment of gas on its pipeline system. The Southcentral Alaska gas utility originally proposed a rate increase for its services in June 2016. Following a lengthy investigation into the proposal, on Sept. 6 the RCA issued an order, accepting some of Enstar’s requested changes and rejecting others. The new Enstar filing modifies the utility’s original proposal to reflect the changes that the RCA requires.

As previously reported in Petroleum News, required changes included the removal of the gas transmission line from Anchor Point to Homer from Enstar’s rate base, and a requirement to use a 13-month average rather than year-end figure for determining the rate base.

The revised tariff includes a range of volumetric service charges for the delivery of gas, as well as fixed customer charges for use of Enstar’s system. For a customer with a meter having a capacity of up to 400 cubic feet per hour, the service charge is $0.15436 per 100 cubic feet of gas, with a monthly customer charge of $17. Currently the monthly customer charge is also $17, but the service charge is $0.13420 per hundred cubic feet.

At the high end of the usage scale, with a meter capacity more than 3,000 cubic feet per hour, the proposed monthly customer charge is $570 and the service charge is $0.07026 per hundred cubic feet. Again, this represents an increase in the service charge without the customer charge changing.

There are specific rates for other classes of customers, including power stations and customers requiring the firm transmission of very large volumes of gas.

These rates are only levied for the use of Enstar’s gas transportation infrastructure. The cost of the actual gas that Enstar supplies to gas consumers is passed directly to customers, based on the price that Enstar pays gas producers for the gas.

- ALAN BAILEY