Introduction

• Course objectives
• Natural gas in our society
• Physical properties of natural gas
• Units used to measure gas

Gas Customers

• The four key types of end-use customers (residential, commercial, industrial, electric generation)
• Wholesale customers (utilities, marketers)
• Number of customers and usage by customer class
• How residential, commercial, industrial, and electric generation customers use gas
• Aggregate demand and seasonal load curves
• Services available to satisfy customer needs (bundled utility service, unbundled LDC distribution with competitive supply, bypass, alternate fuels, energy efficiency)
• Average costs by customer type

The Gas Delivery System

• What natural gas is, how it was formed, and where it is found
• The North American supply regions
• Global gas supplies
• Gas system components (pipe, valves, compressors, regulators, meters, monitoring and control systems)
• Exploration, completion, and production
• Gathering and processing
• Gas transmission (pipe, pressure, compressors, hubs)
• The U.S. transmission network
• Hubs
• Gas storage (why gas is stored, how storage works, and where storage is located) • The components of the gas distribution system

Gas Operations

• The entities responsible for gas operations
• Principles of gas operations (compressibility, capacity, maximum and minimum pressures, line pack, packing and drafting)
• System modeling for transmission and distribution systems
• Maintenance of transmission and distribution systems
• The four functions of gas control (forecast demand, develop operational plan, implement plan, and record daily activity)
• Nominations and scheduling
• Curtailments and how they are implemented
• Gas balancing
• Operational and emergency flow orders
• Gas accounting
• System maintenance
• Emergency operations
• How competitive markets and IT are changing the role of operations

Gas Regulation

• What regulation is and does
• Why the gas industry is regulated
• The regulatory compact
• How regulation affects market participants (LDCs, interstate pipelines, producers, marketers)
• Who the regulators are (federal and state) and what they regulate
• Four types of regulatory proceedings (rulemakings, rate cases, certificate cases, complaint cases)
• How the regulatory process works
• The various steps in the ratemaking process
• Customer choice availability
• How restructuring has impacted U.S. markets

The Gas Marketplace

• Upstream, midstream and downstream market participants (who they are and what they do)
• Gas market structure and the way in which participants transact business throughout the delivery chain
• Following a typical gas transaction
• How participants make money (regulated vs. competitive)
• Contractual arrangements
• Wholesale services (gathering, processing, supply, transportation, storage, hub services, risk management)
• Retail services (LDC and competitive supply services)
• How prices are set through the delivery chain
• Principles of gas supply and demand
• Why prices can be volatile
• Gas market risks and how they can be mitigated
• Regulation of market behavior

The Future of Natural Gas

• The future of the upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors
• The future of the workforce
• The gas company of tomorrow