TITLE
Recommendation to adopt resolution authorizing City Manager to adjust certain rates for natural gas service to reflect market conditions by implementing Gas Rate Schedules 1 through 5, 7, 9, plus readopt Exhibits A and B. (Citywide)
DISCUSSION
Long Beach Gas and Oil (LBGO) operates and maintains a pressurized natural gas pipeline system that consists of over 1,900 miles of aging underground pipeline and nearly 150,000 natural gas meters. The pipeline system includes both steel and plastic pipeline, with the bulk of the current pipeline system installed in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, with some pipeline from the 1930s still in operation. Detailed historical leakage records of LBGO’s pipeline system clearly demonstrate the relationship between the age of the pipeline and the vulnerability to leakage. With an aging pipeline system, it is imperative that LBGO continually reinvest gas ratepayer revenues into the pipeline infrastructure to maintain safe operation.
From that same safety perspective, federal and state regulators nationwide have increased their oversight of the manner in which individual natural gas utility systems are operated and maintained. Under the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has recently established integrity management requirements for the nation’s gas distribution pipeline systems. New regulations require gas utility systems to develop and implement a Gas Distribution Integrity Management Program (DIMP).
As required, in May 2013, LBGO filed its updated DIMP report with the federal PHMSA. LBGO’s DIMP documents with detailed data the current condition of the overall LBGO gas pipeline system, identifies potential threats to the integrity of the system, and specific steps that LBGO is taking to address these potential threats, including tracking the progress of LBGO removing pre-1950 pipeline from its system. To demonstrate LBGO’s level of effectiveness in redu...
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