Stocks & Investing
Stocks and Investing
Stocks and Investing 
Wed, February 25, 2009
Tue, February 24, 2009
Public Utility Commission of Oregon Approves NW Natural System Integrity Program
PORTLAND, Ore.--([ BUSINESS WIRE ])--Northwest Natural Gas Company, dba NW Natural (NYSE:NWN), today reported that the Public Utility Commission of Oregon (OPUC) approved a stipulated agreement to create a new, consolidated natural gas pipeline System Integrity Program (SIP). The new SIP integrates older programs into a single program and provides customers with enhanced safety and system reliability.
Parties to the stipulation were NW Natural, OPUC staff, the Citizens' Utility Board of Oregon, and the Northwest Industrial Gas Users.
The new SIP program will allow the company to recover costs related to NW Natural's bare steel, pipeline integrity and other pipeline safety programs. The SIP also includes a component for a distribution integrity management program, which would be implemented following issuance of new federal regulations. Program costs will be tracked annually, with recovery to be sought after the first $3.25 million of capital costs are incurred by the company. An annual cap for expenditures per year would be approximately $12 million, with any extraordinary costs above the cap to be approved with written consent of all parties.
About NW Natural
NW Natural is a 150-year-old company headquartered in Portland, Ore., and serves about 662,000 residential and business customers in Oregon and Southwest Washington. It is also the largest independent natural gas utility in the Pacific Northwest. NW Natural has approximately $2.4 billion in total assets, which includes about 16 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of underground gas storage capacity within its service territory at Mist, Ore., and plans to build a 20 Bcf underground gas storage facility near Fresno, Calif., as well as a proposed 217-mile pipeline to potentially serve customers in Oregon and the West Coast. For more information about NW Natural, please visit [ www.nwnatural.com ].