The Missouri Public Service Commission regulates investor-owned electric, steam, natural gas, water and sewer and telephone companies. Its mission is to ensure Missouri consumers have access to safe, reliable and reasonably priced utility service while allowing those utility companies under our jurisdiction an opportunity to earn a reasonable return on their investment. The PSC also regulates manufacturers and retail dealers who sell new and used manufactured homes and modular units. The commission was established in 1913. The PSC is comprised of five commissioners, who are appointed by the governor.
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PR-09-17 -- Public Service Commission Saves Missourians $4 Million in Natural Gas Costs
Contact: Kevin Kelly (573) 751-9300
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- JULY 25, 2008
JEFFERSON CITY—The Missouri Public Service Commission has won a settlement before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that will save Missouri consumers an estimated $4 million in future natural gas costs.
The case, part of a $9.6 million agreement involving utility consumers in both Missouri and Kansas, involves costs of natural gas lost last year in two major leaks.
In a filing before the FERC, Southern Star Central Gas Pipeline, Inc. sought to recover costs of gas losses from a major leak on a Southern Star main transmission pipeline near Hutchinson, Kansas in January 2007 and from a ruptured pipeline at Southern Star’s McLouth Storage Field in August 2007.
Losses of small amounts of natural gas in transmission systems are not unusual, and these costs are typically absorbed in the overall pricing structure of natural gas charged by local companies.
Pipeline companies such as Southern Star annually file requests with the FERC to pass on costs of lost gas to the company’s natural gas transportation customers. Because the Southern Star losses involved major leaks and ruptures, the Missouri PSC and the Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC) intervened in the FERC case and prevailed in preventing $9.6 million in costs resulting from the rupture and gas leak from being passed on to consumers in Missouri and Kansas.
Southern Star is one of the largest wholesale transporters of natural gas used by Missouri consumers. It has several pipelines that enter Missouri to serve the Kansas City, St. Louis, St. Joseph, Springfield and Joplin. Missouri consumers make up 40 percent of Southern Star’s customers.
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