SoCalGas Updates: TIMPBA Motion; Cash-Out Rates
Transmission Integrity Management
SoCalGas, Cal Advocates, the Indicated Shippers, and the Small Business Utility Advocates filed a joint motion to admit all prepared testimony, rebuttal testimony, workpapers, and data responses into the evidentiary record of SoCalGas’s Transmission Integrity Management Program Balancing Account (TIMPBA) cost-recovery application for 2019–2023.
The motion lists each exhibit (ranging from SoCalGas’s technical, accounting, and rates testimony to Cal Advocates’, Indicated Shippers’, and SBUA’s operational and cost critiques) along with public links and confidential volumes submitted under seal. The materials cover project execution, balancing-account treatment, revenue requirement calculations, amended workpapers, rebuttal positions, and data-request exchanges, forming the full evidentiary basis for evaluating SoCalGas’s request to recover TIMP expenditures.
Recall that SoCalGas filed the TIMPBA application last spring, requesting review and recovery of $173.8 million of costs recorded in the TIMPBA. The filing packages five years of transmission-integrity spending into a single reasonableness review, creating a serious test of whether its inspection, remediation, and project-management costs can withstand intervenor scrutiny. For industrial shippers, the outcome will determine how much of the 2019–2023 safety portfolio ultimately flows through into future transportation rates.
INSTANT ANALYSIS: The TIMPBA case is now entering its evidentiary phase, with parties agreeing to admit the full testimony and workpaper set into the record. With the evidentiary foundation established, the proceeding now moves toward briefing and a proposed decision, meaning cost-recovery outcomes will hinge on the written record rather than any remaining procedural disputes.
Cash-Out Rates
SoCalGas filed Advice Letter 6566-G (available here) to update its California Producer Service (G-CPS) Imbalance Cash-Out Rates for November 2025, consistent with previously approved tariff methodology.
The filing reflects routine monthly updates required under a Commission-approved framework, later modified in 2017 to rely on Natural Gas Intelligence daily SoCal Border indices and a 7-day averaging method.
The revised tariff sheets incorporate the November 2025 cash-out values (covering high, low, and average NGI-based indices) alongside the prior month’s October calculations. Rates are noted below. Protests to this filing are due December 23.
INSTANT ANALYSIS: This is a routine, formula-driven cash-out update under the G-CPS tariff, but the numbers matter: November’s 7-day average cash-out price jumped to $0.289/therm, up from $0.217/therm in October, perhaps reflecting a tightening of SoCal Border conditions. For California producers, this could mean higher imbalance settlement exposure heading into winter.