News

With the hurricane Katrina and Rita disasters in the forefront of everyone's minds, California Gas Transmission representatives have received questions from customers wanting to know how nominations through INSIDEtracc would be handled in the event CGT is directly impacted by a natural disaster.

Alternative operational plans are essential for addressing disaster events. CGT has an action plan in case a disaster strikes and will communicate the actions we are taking as a result of the disaster, describe any actions customers need to take, and communicate when problems are expected to be resolved. Situational updates will be provided via the following methods, based on availability:

1. INSIDEtracc
2. Pipe Ranger news articles
3. Messages on the CGT Helpline (1.800.343.4743)
4. E-mail
5. Blast page
6. Telephone and Faxes

What if INSIDEtracc is unavailable?

During a disaster affecting CGT, INSIDEtracc may not be available to accept nominations but we may still process nominations. If INSIDEtracc is unavailable, nominations must be submitted using the Gas Nomination Form, available on Pipe Ranger. The Gas Nomination Form may be submitted via e-mail (pgescheduling@pge.com) or fax (925.244.4619). CGT will not accept nominations via telephone when INSIDEtracc is unavailable. Consider taking a moment to review the nomination form as part of your disaster preparation plan.

Naturally, submitting nominations via e-mail or fax will have its own inherent risks and CGT cannot guarantee that nominations will all successfully flow and match upstream.

What if INSIDEtracc, e-mail, and fax are unavailable?

If a major catastrophe prevents the use of INSIDEtracc, e-mail and faxes, CGT would schedule the pipeline based on the latest confirmed or scheduled volumes available. For example, if total nominations to an end-use customer were 10,000 Dth for the last gas day, and then all communications were unavailable for the next gas day, CGT would again schedule nominations for that customer totaling 10,000 Dth from the same sources.

In the event of a disaster directly impacting CGT, it is important to continue to nominate your gas on other pipelines flowing into California even if communications with CGT are unavailable. When the problems caused by the disaster subside, any necessary corrections can be made. CGT follows the North American Energy Standard Board (NAESB) rules as appropriate.

In the event of a major system failure impacting INSIDEtracc, CGT will apply NAESB Definition 1.2.11, Confirmation by Exception (CBE). This definition states, "The confirming parties agree that one party deems that all requests at a location are confirmed by the other party (the CBE party) without response communication from that party. The CBE party can take exception to the request by so informing the other party within a mutually agreed upon time frame."

Simply put, if CGT communications are down, we will rely on the data provided by the upstream pipelines and reconcile as needed after the fact.

Update your contact information

Please take some time to review your contact information in INSIDEtracc to ensure that communications are directed to the proper personnel within your organization. To review your contact information, open INSIDEtracc and choose Navigate, Contracts, and then Customers. To update your contact information please call your CGT Account Services Representative

Although we hope that disasters never occur, CGT assures you that we are ready to act should the need arise.