37-3-201. Limit on natural gas storage; sale of excess; rates; removal of gas for purposes of evading article prohibited.

(a) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (b) of this section, no natural gas utility shall include in its rates any charge for any gas maintained in storage in excess of the greater of the amount of stored gas needed to create storage conditions capable of establishing delivery of two and seventy-five hundredths (2.75) times the average annual consumption of natural gas by the tariff customers of that natural gas utility for the immediately preceding three (3) calendar years except the commission may establish a lower limit on the amount of gas in storage upon which a natural gas utility can earn a rate of return or the commission may establish a higher limit on the amount of gas in storage upon which a natural gas utility can earn a rate of return if doing so will reduce rates to customers or prevent likely natural gas shortages or enable the utility to meet peaking requirements.

(b) Any natural gas held in storage in excess of the limit specified in subsection (a) of this section shall be included in the gas sold to the utility's Wyoming tariff customers in a manner and at rates as determined by the commission. The commission may include in the gas to be sold to the tariff customers gas upon which no rate of return has been received provided that the inclusion is in the public interest and is requested by the utility. To the extent excess gas in storage on which a rate of return has been received is available, at least twenty-five percent (25%) of the gas sold to the tariff customers shall be from that excess storage unless the utility chooses to include a higher percentage. The utility shall be permitted to earn a rate of return on the excess gas in storage until the gas is sold to customers as provided by this subsection.

(c) No natural gas may be removed from storage or from the rate base for the purposes of evading the requirements of this article.

(d) No natural gas held in storage upon which the utility has earned a rate of return shall be sold outside the Wyoming service territory of the utility except by order of the commission after public hearing.

(e) Any payment made pursuant to a take or pay contract for gas not taken due to any provision of this act may not be included in any natural gas tariff approved by the public service commission.

(f) For the purposes of this article the public service commission may treat utilities which share storage facilities and are subsidiaries controlled by the same company as a single natural gas utility.

(g) No provision of this bill shall be implemented unless the public service commission determines that such implementation will not cause increased rates for Wyoming consumers resulting from adverse federal income tax consequences.

(h) No provision of this article shall be implemented unless the public service commission determines that the resulting tariff rates will be lower and more in the public interest than the tariff rates which the commission may put into effect through commission action on any pending application before the commission addressing natural gas storage.