During the Imbalance Trade Period, cumulative or operating imbalances may be traded into or out of storage, if two criteria are met.
- The trading party must have contracted for storage service from either Pacific Gas and Electric Company or a third-party storage provider in Pacific Gas and Electric Company's territory. At the time of the trade, the party must have either enough storage inventory space, or gas in inventory, to accommodate the trade.
- The trade must be within the Imbalance Trade Operating Band.
Prior to the Imbalance Trade Period each month, Pacific Gas and Electric Company's California Gas Transmission will determine the upper and lower limits of imbalance trade volumes into or out of storage. These volumes reflect what CGT can accept, in total, based on operational considerations. These volumes define the OP Band.
The OP Band may be viewed from within the Imbalance Trading Tool in INSIDEtracc prior to the start of the Imbalance Trade Period. Once set, the upper limit and lower limit will not change during the Trade Period. The current position between these two volumes, however, will be shifted by each trade made into or out of storage during the Trade Period. The trading party will be able to view, in real time, the current position between these two limits.
In order to balance the system on a daily basis, CGT has set aside a very limited amount of storage capacity for the purpose of system balancing. CGT has only this capacity available to manage normal swings in supply and demand on its system.
During imbalance trading, when a trading party with an overage of gas trades with a party with an equal amount of underage, there is no impact on the system. When a trading party utilizes storage to accept an overage or cover an underage, although this represents a "paper transaction" during the Trade Period, this transaction can result in a system balance underage or overage that has to be made up in the coming month.
CGT has only its limited storage set aside to handle this future make-up and to manage day-today system balancing. As a result, when setting the OP Band, CGT must take into consideration its forecast of system activity for the month after the Trade Period.
Yes. If a trade cannot fit through the OP Band parameters, it will be electronically time-stamped and queued within the system. A status message of "Retained" will be seen on the Web trading screen. It's not an executed trade until it's accepted through the OP Band, confirmed by the system and displayed as "Confirmed."
Yes, the system reviews all retained storage trades in order of their time-stamp each time the storage OP Band changes due to other successful system-wide storage trades. This occurs on a "real-time" basis within the electronic trading system.
No, you are privy only to your own information
No, it will be held (retained) and automatically confirmed if the Current Position changes sufficiently to allow that trade through the OP Band.
The trade will go through if the Current Position within the OP Band changes sufficiently to allow it. When it does, the display on your screen will change to "Confirmed" from "Retained". You will need to monitor the status yourself, however; there is no mechanism for sending you a message when the trade goes through.
No, the Current Position changes once the second party confirms the trade and it is successfully validated within the system.
No, the system can not accept partial volumes of trades. The trade will remain retained until the OP Band/Current Position allows the entire trade volume through.
No, a retained trade may be rejected by either party, but not modified.