NARUC issues an LNG handbook for regulators and others
The liquefied natural gas market has evolved enough to warrant an updated handbook for state regulators from the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.
LNG: A Local Market – A Global Market, an Introductory Handbook for State Public Utility Commissioners is intended to serve as a tool for regulators and others to understand the basics behind today’s LNG market and facilitate a thoughtful discourse among producers, regulators and consumers.
Co-written by Andreas D. Thanos of the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities and Diane X. Burman of the New York State Public Service Commission, the handbook updates the 2009 NARUC report, Global Liquefied Natural Gas Supply: An Introduction for Public Utility Commissioners.
“We are seeing LNG being used in innovative ways and not just as a winter peaking fuel,” NARUC President Nick Wagner said in a news release. “Generating facilities, industry, shipping and railroads are among the many segments of our economy that now routinely rely on LNG.”
Domestically, LNG is not limited to the coastal regions with import terminals anymore, as export terminals are serving the international energy markets, he said. LNG is also used in some U.S. states, such as Iowa, by local distribution companies to supplement gas service, Wagner noted.
Burman, who is chair of NARUC’s Committee on Gas, said that while LNG is not a fuel that all commissions deal with directly, a pipeline that feeds a facility may cross through a state commission’s jurisdiction, or trucks transporting liquid might drive along its roads.
“Many of us are starting to see LNG used more routinely in our regions. Therefore, we are increasingly being called upon to carefully evaluate issues around the economics, the environment, power generation and cleaner fuels,” she said in NARUC’s news release.
The United States imported the largest volume of LNG in 2007 and since then has witnessed a gradual decrease in imports and a robust increase in the volumes of LNG exports, largely due to new gas that has become available through hydraulic fracturing, NARUC reported. Currently, the only U.S. LNG import facility is in Everett, Massachusetts—involving U.S. LNG in much more of the global market than ever before.