Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 207 / Friday, October 27, 2017 / Notices 49797 

DOE/FE ORDERS GRANTING IMPORT/EXPORT AUTHORIZATIONS—Continued 

4080 .............................. 08/14/17 17–102–NG Rice Energy Marketing LLC .................. Order 4080 granting blanket authority 

to import/export natural gas from/to 

Canada/Mexico. 

4081 .............................. 08/14/17 17–103–NG Enterprise Products Operating LLC ...... Order 4081 granting blanket authority 

to import/export natural gas from/to 

Canada/Mexico. 

4082 .............................. 08/14/17 17–90–NG Southern California Gas Company ....... Order 4082 granting blanket authority

to import/export natural gas from/to 

Mexico. 

4083 .............................. 08/14/17 17–98–NG Public Utility District No. 1 of Clark 

County.

Order 4083 granting blanket authority 

to import/export natural gas from/to 

Canada. 

3764–A .......................... 08/31/17 15–180–NG Uniper Global Commodities North 

America LLC.

Order 3764–A vacating blanket authority to import/export natural gas from/ 

to Canada. 

4085 .............................. 08/31/17 17–104–NG Tidal Energy Marketing (U.S.) L.L.C. .... Order 4085 granting blanket authority 

to import/export natural gas from/to 

Canada. 

[FR Doc. 2017–23418 Filed 10–26–17; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6450–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

Energy Information Administration 

Agency Information Collection 

Extension 

AGENCY: U.S. Energy Information 

Administration (EIA), Department of 

Energy (DOE). 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: EIA has submitted an 

information collection request to OMB 

for extension under the provisions of 

the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. 

The information collection requests a 

three-year extension with changes of its 

Natural Gas Data Collection Program, 

under OMB Control No. 1905–0175. The 

proposed collection will provide 

information on the supply and 

disposition of natural gas within the 

United States. 

DATES: Comments regarding this 

information collection must be received 

on or before November 27, 2017. If you 

anticipate that you will be submitting 

comments, but find it difficult to do so 

within the period of time allowed by 

this notice, please advise the DOE Desk 

Officer at OMB of your intention to 

make a submission as soon as possible. 

The Desk Officer may be telephoned at 

202–395–4718. 

ADDRESSES: Written comments should 

be sent to Chad S. Whiteman, DOE Desk 

Officer, Office of Information and 

Regulatory Affairs, Office of 

Management and Budget, New 

Executive Office Building, Room 10102, 

735 17th Street NW., Washington, DC 

20503, Chad S Whiteman@omb.eop.gov. 

and to Mr. Michael Kopalek, U.S. 

Department of Energy, U.S. Energy 

Information Administration EI–25, 1000 

Independence Ave. SW., Washington, 

DC 20585, Michael.Kopalek@eia.gov. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Requests for additional information or 

copies of the information collection 

instrument and instructions should be 

directed to Michael Kopalek, 202–586– 

4001, Michael.kopalek@eia.gov, https:// 

www.eia.gov/survey/notice/ 

ngdownstreamforms2018.php. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This 

information collection request contains: 

(1) OMB Control Number 1905–0175; 

(2) Information Collection Request 

Title: Natural Gas Data Collection 

Program; 

The surveys covered by this 

information collection request include: 

• Form EIA–176, Annual Report of 

Natural and Supplemental Gas Supply 

and Disposition 

• Form EIA–191, Monthly 

Underground Gas Storage Report 

• Form EIA–757, Natural Gas 

Processing Plant Survey 

• Form EIA–857, Monthly Report of 

Natural Gas Purchases and Deliveries to 

Consumers 

• Form EIA–910, Monthly Natural 

Gas Marketer Survey 

• Form EIA–912, Weekly 

Underground Natural Gas Storage 

Report 

(3) Type of Request: Three-year 

extension with changes; 

(4) Purpose: The surveys included in 

the Natural Gas Data Collection Program 

Package collect information on natural 

gas underground storage, supply, 

processing, transmission, distribution, 

consumption by sector, and consumer 

prices. This information is used to 

support public policy analyses of the 

natural gas industry and estimates 

generated from data collected on these 

surveys. The statistics generated from 

these surveys are posted to the EIA Web 

site (http://www.eia.gov) and in various 

EIA products, including the Weekly 

Natural Gas Storage Report (WNGSR), 

Natural Gas Monthly (NGM), Natural 

Gas Annual (NGA), Monthly Energy 

Review (MER), Short-Term Energy 

Outlook (STEO), Annual Energy 

Outlook (AEO), and Annual Energy 

Review (AER). EIA requests a three-year 

extension of collection authority for 

each of the above-referenced surveys 

with changes to Forms EIA–176, EIA– 

191, EIA–757, EIA–910, and EIA–912. 

(4a) Proposed Changes to Information 

Collection: 

Form EIA–176, Annual Report of 

Natural and Supplemental Gas Supply 

and Disposition 

Form EIA–176 collects data on 

natural, synthetic, and other 

supplemental gas supplies, their 

disposition, and certain revenues by 

state. The changes include: 

a. Add a question in Part 3(B) to ask 

respondents if they have an alternativefueled vehicle fleet and how many and 

what kind of vehicles make up the fleet. 

This information improves survey frame 

coverage and data accuracy reported on 

Form EIA–886, Annual Survey of 

Alternative Fueled Vehicles; 

b. A new section Part 3(E) asking local 

distribution companies to provide all 

the counties where they deliver natural 

gas for end-use consumption. This 

information enables EIA to estimate the 

approximate service territory for a local 

distribution company. EIA has received 

public inquiries about service territories 

associated with natural gas distributors 

and this information will be useful to 

EIA and the public for understanding 

this retail market sector. 

c. Addition of a question in Part 3(F) 

asking respondents for the names and 

zip codes of any aboveground liquefied 

(LNG) natural gas storage facilities that 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
49798 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 207 / Friday, October 27, 2017 / Notices 

are owned, operated, or provide services 

to a survey respondent. This enables 

EIA to facilitate collection of LNG data 

by operators and their locations; 

d. Discontinue collecting the costs 

associated with purchase gas received 

within the service area. EIA has the 

capability to estimate values for this 

activity using monthly data. Deleting 

this data element reduces respondent 

reporting burden and relieves EIA 

resources used to validate the 

information; 

e. Discontinue the collection of yearend natural gas pump price in Part 3 

Item B4. EIA determined that this 

question had large variation in data 

quality and inconsistent reporting 

methodologies. 

f. Move Part 6 Line 12.4 (from the 

drop down menu selection) sub-item 

9096, ‘‘Other Natural gas consumed in 

your operations: Vaporization/LNG 

Fuel,’’ to make it a standalone line item 

as new Line 12.4, called ‘‘Vaporization/ 

Liquefaction/LNG Fuel.’’ The collection 

of ‘‘Other Natural Gas’’ consumed in 

operations that was previously listed on 

Line 12.4 will be shown as a new Line 

12.6 in Part 6 with the three other drop 

down choices (Utilities Use, Other, and 

Other Expenses) available to the user. In 

the past, many respondents have missed 

reporting this data element. The change 

is designed to improve the coverage and 

accuracy of respondents reporting this 

information and will assist EIA in its 

modeling and analysis; and 

g. Add a question in Part 6 Line 12.5, 

‘‘Vehicle fuel used in company fleet’’ to 

collect information on fuel consumption 

by company vehicles. Based on 

cognitive testing of Form EIA–176 form, 

respondents were reporting natural gas 

vehicle fuel for their own company fleet 

as company use. This affects the 

accuracy of the vehicle fuel volumes 

and prices reported in Part 6 Items 10.5 

and 11.5. Company consumption 

volumes do not have associated revenue 

and should not be included in 10.5 and 

11.5. Adding this question gives 

respondents a place on Form EIA–176 to 

report company-owned vehicle fuel 

volumes and improve the accuracy of 

vehicle fuel prices based on Part 6 Items 

10.5 and 11.5. 

Form EIA–191, Monthly Underground 

Gas Storage Report 

Form EIA–191 collects data on the 

operations of all active underground 

storage facilities. EIA is making the 

following changes to Form EIA–191: 

a. Remove ‘‘Other’’ as a response 

option under ‘‘type of facility’’ question 

in Part 3 of the survey form. 

Respondents have not utilized this 

category for classifying their facilities. 

This open ended facility category did 

not provide its intended utility and as 

a result EIA is deleting it. 

Form EIA–757, Natural Gas Processing 

Plant Survey 

Form EIA–757 collects information on 

the capacity, status, and operations of 

natural gas processing plants, and 

monitors their constraints to natural gas 

supplies during catastrophic events, 

such as hurricanes. Schedule A of Form 

EIA–757 is used to collect data every 

three years. Schedule A collects 

baseline operating and capacity 

information from all respondents. 

Schedule A was used to collect 

information in 2015 and the next 

planned collection for Schedule A is 

2018. Schedule B is activated as needed 

and collects data from a sample of 

respondents in affected areas as needed. 

Schedule B was last activated in 2012 

when Hurricane Isaac damaged energy 

supply infrastructure along the Gulf 

Coast. A sample of approximately 20 

plants reported in 2012 during that 

supply disruption. EIA is continuing the 

collection of the same data elements on 

Form EIA–757 Schedules A and B in 

their present form with two protocol 

changes: 

a. Collect Schedule A data for new 

natural gas processing plants that 

opened and began operations during the 

current three-year data collection cycles. 

This minor protocol change allows EIA 

to maintain a current frame at all times 

rather than updating the survey frame 

every three years when a new data 

collection cycle begins; 

b. Collect ‘‘processing throughput 

capacity’’ information in Schedule A on 

an annual basis. This allows EIA to 

track recent changes in natural gas 

processing plant capacities, a key piece 

of information needed for using Form 

EIA–757 Schedule B Emergency 

Activation portion of the survey during 

a natural disaster or similar crisis 

situation. 

Form EIA–912 Weekly Underground 

Natural Gas Storage Report 

Form EIA–912 collects information on 

weekly inventories of natural gas in 

underground storage facilities. This is 

one change to Form EIA–912 to include 

an additional geographic data element 

for Inventory of Working Gas in Storage 

as described below: 

a. Divide the ‘‘South Central’’ 

reporting region into ‘‘South Central 

Salt’’ and ‘‘South Central Nonsalt.’’ 

Currently EIA categorizes storage 

operators as either Salt facilities or 

Nonsalt facilities and allocates their 

volumes entirely to that region. This 

change would require respondents to 

allocate volumes in their reported data 

between Salt facilities and Nonsalt 

facilities in order to improve the 

accuracy of EIA’s published estimates 

on underground storage. For example, 

under the current methodology, 

volumes reported by a respondent with 

majority salt storage would be allocated 

entirely to the ‘‘South Central Salt’’ 

region, even if nearly half of their 

volumes were stored in nonsalt 

facilities. Currently, operators with 

more than 15 billion cubic feet of 

storage capacity in the South Central 

region report volumes separately 

between Salt facilities or Nonsalt 

facilities. This change will require all 

operators in the reporting sample to 

report the same way. 

(5) Annual Estimated Number of 

Survey Respondents: 3,340. 

EIA–176 consists of 2,050 

respondents. 

EIA–191 consists of 145 respondents. 

EIA–757 Schedule A consists of 600 

respondents. 

EIA–757 Schedule B consists of 20 

respondents. 

EIA–857 consists of 330 respondents. 

EIA–910 consists of 100 respondents. 

EIA–912 consists of 95 respondents. 

(6) Annual Estimated Number of 

Total Responses: 14,227. 

(7) Annual Estimated Number of 

Burden Hours: 50,724. 

(8) Annual Estimated Reporting and 

Recordkeeping Cost Burden: The 

information is maintained in the normal 

course of business. The cost of the 

burden hours is estimated to be $3,736, 

330 (50,724 burden hours times $73.66 

per hour). Other than the cost of burden 

hours, EIA estimates that there are no 

additional costs for generating, 

maintaining and providing the 

information. 

Statutory Authority: Section 13(b) of 

the Federal Energy Administration Act 

of 1974, Pub. L. 93–275, codified as 15 

U.S.C. 772(b) and the DOE Organization 

Act of 1977, Pub. L. 95–91, codified at 

42 U.S.C. 7101 et seq. 

Issued in Washington, DC on October 17, 

2017. 

Nanda Srinivasan, 

Director, Office of Survey Development and 

Statistical Integration, U.S. Energy 

Information Administration. 

[FR Doc. 2017–23398 Filed 10–26–17; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6450–01–P 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES