At the request of Rice Energy Marketing LLC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), on Oct. 15, 2015, issued a Declaratory Order that clarified the extent to which releases of capacity to asset managers are exempt from FERC’s prohibition on buy/sell transactions. As clarified, the exemption extends to volumes of gas purchased from the releasing shipper in a “supply asset management agreement” (supply AMA) as well as a “delivery AMA.” “[T]he Commission clarifies that buy/sell transactions in which the releasing shipper in a supply AMA sells its natural gas to its asset manager, the asset manager transports the gas over the released capacity, and the asset manager then resells the natural gas to the releasing shipper are not buy/sell transactions of the type prohibited by Order No. 636.” By so clarifying, FERC eliminated any question that the two types of AMAs stood on the same footing insofar as it concerns the exemption from the prohibition on buy/sell transactions.

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