Justification for Change

In view of the widespread damage caused by Hurricane Ike, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) is requesting activation of Schedule B of Form EIA-757, “Natural Gas Processing Plant Survey.” The OMB control number for this form is 1905-0206. The EIA-757 is not used for ongoing data collection and Schedule B, “Emergency Status Report,” was designed to collect data in the event of an emergency, such as Hurricane Ike.

As of September 18, 2008, the Minerals Management Service estimates that production from the Gulf of Mexico is at about 20 percent of normal levels. In addition, damage to onshore natural gas infrastructure facilities, including natural gas processing plants and refineries, has been reported. Between 30 and 50 percent of processing plant capacity in the Gulf Coast region is estimated to be shutdown. Recovery is expected to take several weeks or more. The supply losses and expected recovery timeframe satisfy the conditions to activate the Form EIA-757. In view of the additional respondent burden, this request does not include collection of data on Schedule A, “Baseline Report” from processing plants in the affected area.

Schedule B data collection will be temporary and the frequency of the data collection is based on a number of factors, including the severity of the supply emergency and the number of plants affected. Selection of respondents, the frequency of the survey submissions, and the corresponding reporting due-date, are listed below.

Respondents

The survey sample for this action consists of 11 companies that operate 25 natural gas processing plants (Table 1). A cutoff sample based on location and plant capacity was used to determine the plants to include in the survey. Plants located in the path of Hurricane Ike, in Texas and Louisiana with total plant capacity of 150 million cubic feet per day or more are included in the sample.

Frequency of Survey Submissions

Using the Form EIA-757, EIA plans to collect data each weekday as of 1 p.m. Eastern Time until Sept. 29, 2008, and then collect data bi-weekly, on Tuesday and Fridays as of 1 p.m. Eastern Time, until October 10. In total, data collection would occur on 10 days, September 23-26, September 29-30, and October 3, 7, 10. Currently, we do not expect to collect data beyond October 10. Data collection will be primarily by telephone or electronic mail. The data would be collected from the affected plants until they are operating at normal levels. On October 10 EIA will reassess the outages caused by Hurricane Ike and determine if it is necessary to collect data for an additional period of time. If EIA finds that less frequent data collection satisfies the need for information about the recovery of processing plants, we will reduce the frequency of data collection.

Burden

The total burden is estimated to be 375 hours, i.e., 1.5 hours per plant times 25 plants times 10 days. The estimated total cost to respondents for the burden hours is estimated to be $23,250 dollars, i.e., 375 hours times $62 per hour (The average loaded salary plus benefits for an EIA employee is $62 per hour.) In fact, the actual burden to respondents may be less, because no data collection is necessary once the plant is operating at normal levels.

We would appreciate your timely approval.