Filing Manual – Guide BB – Financial Surveillance Reports (Toll Information Regulations)

Table of Contents

1. Goal
2. BB.1 Financial Surveillance Reporting Requirements for Group 1 Companies
   1. Filing Requirements
      1. Table BB-1: Variance Reporting Thresholds for Group 1 Companies
   2. Guidance
3. BB.2 Traffic Data
   1. Filing Requirements
4. BB.3 Financial Surveillance Reporting for Group 2 Companies
5. BB.4 Integrity Spending
   1. Filing Requirements
      1. Schedules – Income Summary, Average Rate Base, Deferral Accounts, Historical annual integrity spending ($), and Integrity spending for 2017 to later years ($)

The Toll Information Regulations require pipeline companies that charge tolls to file quarterly surveillance reports and traffic data.

Goal

The reports contain information which enables the CER to monitor a pipeline’s financial performance and the basis for calculating tolls and to monitor the results for each company over time. Interested parties such as shippers may also monitor these reports as they are publicly available on the CER’s website.

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BB.1 Financial Surveillance Reporting Requirements for Group 1 Companies

Filing Requirements

1. Unless the Commission otherwise directs or section 8 applies, a Group 1 pipeline company shall file the information set out in requirements 2 to 7.

2. All companies shall file their quarterly surveillance reports in the format set out in Schedules 1 to 3 of this Guide.

3. A company shall file its surveillance report:

• for the first three quarters of each year, no later than 45 days after the quarter; and
• for the year-end report, no later than 60 days after the quarter.

4. An interim surveillance report shall be filed when the tolls of a pipeline company are set as interim and replaced with a report based on final tolls as soon as they are made final by the Commission.

5. Provide an explanation for all variances as described in the following table:

Table BB-1:
Variance Reporting Thresholds for Group 1 Companies
Filing Guide BB.1 Surveillance Reports

Table BB-1: Variance Reporting Thresholds for Group 1 Companies – Filing Guide BB.1 Surveillance Reports

	Annual Revenue of a Group 1 Company
Items in Guide BB Surveillance Reports Requiring Variance Explanations	Less than $200 million	$200 million to $500 million	Greater than $500 million
Annual revenue variance by each service or tariff no. making up more than 10% of total annual revenue	$1 million or greater Note a	$5 million or greater	$10 million or greater
Variances for each of: operations, maintenance and administration, depreciation, financial charges, integrity spending, income taxes	$500,000 or greater	$3 million or greater	$5 million or greater
Rate base variance (year-over-year change)	$3 million or greater	$10 million or greater	$20 million or greater

6. Provide details of related-company transactions over $100,000.

7. File in the year-end report, five years of time-series data on the actual and approved rates of return on common equity and the actual and approved rates of return on rate base.

8. Notwithstanding filing requirements included in its negotiated settlement, a Group 1 pipeline company regulated under an incentive type settlement may negotiate filing requirements other than those specified in requirements 2 to 7 with its shippers and stakeholders, so long as:

• the reports include the following base level information:
  • income statement, including revenues and expenses broken down by major categories;
  • details of deferral account balances (if applicable);
  • rate of return on common equity and on total capital;
  • rate base information, if applicable, broken down by major categories; if not applicable, gross and net plant in service, broken down by major categories;
  • traffic data as described in section BB.2;
  • details on incentive sharing mechanisms; and
  • details of all related-company transactions over $100,000
• the reports are submitted at least annually for all information, except traffic data, which shall be submitted quarterly; and
• the reports are not suspended during periods of interim tolls.

Guidance

Related-company transactions would include all transactions with affiliates and other related companies that are not at arms’ length.

The company may file performance measures that it considers may be useful to the CER.

The CER may publish the data filed pursuant to this section and section BB.2 from time to time.

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BB.2 Traffic Data

Filing Requirements

1. A company shall file its traffic data for the first three quarters of each year, no later than 45 days after the quarter and for the year-end report, no later than 60 days after the quarter.

• Data must be provided in machine readable format (e.g., .csv or .xls files);
• Ten years of historical data must be provided initially (i.e., one-time); and
• Five years of historical data must be provided with each year-end filing.

2. The company shall file data for key points on its system.

• The number of reporting points will vary on the system. A “bullet line” may report data at only one point while more complex systems may report at more than ten points.
• Key points may be determined in consultation with CER staff and the company shall provide the CER with latitude and longitude coordinates for each key point.

3. Companies shall report the capacity of the system at each key point and explain the reason for any deviations from the nameplate capacity of the pipeline.

4. Gas pipelines shall report the daily volume of gas flowed (with imports and exports reported separately; not netted) in cubic metres and GJ for key points on the system.

5. Oil pipelines shall report the following monthly data:

• For key points on the system volume in cubic metres of oil flowed by product (e.g., synthetic oil, condensate, blended bitumen, domestic light, domestic heavy, imported light, imported heavy, refined petroleum products, natural gas liquids);
• Density in kilograms per cubic metre at 15 degrees Celsius for the system; and
• Total monthly nominations in cubic metres and apportionment data.

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BB.3 Financial Surveillance Reporting for Group 2 Companies

The Commission has exempted Group 2 companies from the Toll Information Regulations. The CER does not generally require Group 2 companies to provide periodic financial information, such as quarterly surveillance reports, for the purpose of monitoring the financial performance of these companies. As circumstances dictate, the CER may perform an audit of a company’s records.

See section P.6 – Regulation of the Traffic, Tolls and Tariffs of Group 2 Companies in Guide P for a discussion of financial reporting.

See section P.6 Regulation of the Traffic, Tolls and Tariffs of Group 2 Companies in Guide P for a discussion of financial reporting.

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BB.4 Integrity Spending

Filing Requirements

1. Effective 1 March 2017, the CER requires each Group 1 pipeline company to file with the CER actual expenditure information made under the pipeline company’s integrity management program. The required information is described below:

Facilities included: As defined under “pipeline” in section 2 of the CER Act and shall include hydrocarbon processing plants subject to the PPR.

Integrity Spending: The actual annual capital expenditures and actual annual operating expenditures made under each pipeline company’s integrity management program as mandated by the OPR and the PPR.

Historical Integrity Spending data: Integrity Spending separated into capital and operating components for each calendar year from 2012 to 2016.

Integrity Spending data filing requirements for 2017 and later years: Integrity Spending for each calendar year for each pipeline company, which shall be filed with the CER no later than 60 days after the close of the calendar year as part of the year-end quarterly surveillance report filing.

Integrity expenditure categories: Integrity Spending must be provided and separated into total capital and total operating expenditures. To the extent possible, additional categorizations should be provided, as illustrated by Schedules 4 and 5. For instance, subject to a Group 1 pipeline company’s available records, a Group 1 pipeline company might identify capital and operating components of their Integrity Spending by the following broad categories:

1. Program management: Expenditures may include program development, implementation and improvement, records management, program audits, data collection and analysis, and risk assessment.
2. Surveillance, condition monitoring and integrity hazard assessment: Expenditures in this category may include right of way surveys, corrosion monitoring and control surveys, in-line inspections, and geotechnical and water crossing surveys.
3. Mitigation and remediation: Expenditures in this category may include preventative actions, the repair and replacement of pipeline systems and processing plants. Both planned and unplanned expenditures should be included.
4. Other expenditures: Any expenditures not captured in the above categories.

Schedules 1 to 5 – Income Summary, Average Rate Base, Deferral Accounts, Historical annual integrity spending ($), and Integrity spending for 2017 to later years ($) [WORD 152 KB]

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