Natural Gas Data Collection Program Package

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION
Washington, DC 20585

Form Approved
OMB No. XXXX-XXXX
Expiration Date: 12/31/XX

MONTHLY REPORT OF NATURAL GAS PURCHASES AND DELIVERIES TO CONSUMERS
FORM EIA-857
INSTRUCTIONS
www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/natural_gas/survey_forms/nat_survey_f
orms.html

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) Form EIA-857,
“Monthly Report of Natural Gas Purchases and Deliveries to
Consumers,” is designed to collect data on the quantity and cost of
natural gas delivered to distribution systems and the quantity and
revenue of natural gas delivered to end-use consumers by market
sector, on a monthly basis by State. The data appear in the EIA
publications, Monthly Energy Review, Natural Gas Annual, and
Natural Gas Monthly.

You can also access the materials by following these steps:
• Go to EIA's website at www.eia.doe.gov
• Click on the Natural Gas category (this takes you to EIA's
natural gas information page).
• Click on the Survey Forms link located in the reference box in
the lower right corner.
• Select the materials you want.

REPORTING REQUIREMENTS

Files must be saved to your personal computer. Data cannot be
entered interactively on the website.

Respondents that were selected to report in more than one State
must submit a separate report for each State. A unique
identification number has been provided for each State.
Respondents should only report for the States in which they were
selected even if they serve consumers in other States as well.

WHEN TO REPORT

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Form EIA-857 must be filed with EIA, on or before the 30th
calendar day after the end of the report month. When the 30th day
falls on a weekend or national holiday, the reports are to be filed
by the next business day.

HOW TO REPORT

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Instructions on where to report via mail, fax, secure file transfer,
or email are printed on Part 2 of Form EIA-857.

Forms may be submitted through the Secure File Transfer System.
The secure hypertext transfer protocol (HTTPS) is an industry
standard method to send information over the web using a secure,
encrypted process. All information is protected by 128-bit
encryption to maintain the privacy and confidentiality of
transmitted data. The Secure File Transfer System may be
accessed
through
the
following
web
address:
https://idc.eia.doe.gov/upload/noticeoog.jsp.

SURVEY

Complete only those Parts and data elements applicable to your
operations. Leave all other spaces blank. No data are to be entered
in the shaded areas or spaces.
Information reported is intended to represent gas physically
received or delivered during the report month.
All purchase and delivery transactions should be reported when
and where the gas physically enters or leaves your company’s
system.
Flexibility is afforded to accommodate differences in the billing
schedules and accounting practices of respondents. Data may be
reported based upon the supplier’s monthly billing period and the
respondent’s scheduled consumer billing cycles. The timing and
periods covered for purchases and deliveries to consumers need
not, and would not normally be expected to, coincide.
If necessary, in order to file by the due date, complete the report
based upon estimates. Estimated data items should be denoted by
placing an “e” immediately after the item.
Negative values are not acceptable.

SECURE FILE TRANSFER

COPIES OF THE
INSTRUCTIONS

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS

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Reports must be completed by all companies selected to submit
the Form EIA-857. These companies were statistically selected by
EIA from a list of all companies in the United States that deliver
natural gas to consumers, including pipeline companies that serve
consumers directly. The selection provides a representative sample
of natural gas deliveries in the various States and the District of
Columbia.

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PURPOSE

FORM

AND

Resubmissions of reports are not required unless actual or
corrected data vary more than plus (+) or minus (-) 4 percent from
the data previously reported. This includes, prior period
adjustments, which should be filed as resubmissions for the
months to which the adjustments were made. If company records
do not permit allocation of adjustments to the appropriate months,
the adjustments should be reported in the area provided for
comments.
All respondents should review forms prior to submission. A
comment section on the form is provided for addressing data
anomalies, changes in business organization, changes in status of
business operation, or any other pertinent information that may
affect the processing of your Form EIA- 857.

Copies in portable document format (PDF) and spreadsheet format
(XLS) are available on EIA's website at:

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PART 1: RESPONDENT IDENTIFICATION
Please provide up-to-date company information.
EIA ID Number: Complete the 10-digit identification number
assigned by EIA. Companies operating in more than one State
should note that a unique number has been assigned for operations
in each State. In the event an identification number has not been
assigned, leave the space blank and contact the EIA at (877) 8005261, a number will then be assigned by the EIA.
Resubmission: Check the box if report is a revised report. If the
report is an original, leave this space blank.
Company Name: Enter the company name.
Contact Information: Enter the current contact information.
PART 2: SUBMISSION INFORMATION
Provides information for the four options available for submitting
your completed Form EIA-857: (1) mail; (2) fax; (3) email; and
(4) Secure File Transfer.

Gas purchased for storage, except for storage in your own storage
reservoirs within your distribution service area, should be
excluded at the time of its purchase. The volumes and associated
costs (including net gains or losses from financial hedges) are to
be reported when the gas is withdrawn from storage and
transported to the distribution area for sale and delivery to
consumers. The value then should include transportation and
storage costs as well as the commodity cost.
Lump sum refunds received or lump sum minimum take, take-orpay, or similar charges paid for prior period receipts should be
excluded from Part 3 but described in the area provided for
comments. Only total amounts received or paid need to be
reported in the comments section. Prior reports need not be revised
to reflect such sums.

Natural Gas Deliveries (items 2 through 11)

Report the number of customers, volumes sold and delivered
directly to end-use consumers and the revenues received. Report
separately for natural gas that you own (items 2 through 6) and for
natural gas that you do not own (items 7 through 11).

AF

PART 3: NATURAL GAS PURCHASES AND DELIVERIES
TO CONSUMERS

Respondents with a contiguous distribution service area extending
across States lines should report purchased gas information only
on the reports for the States in which the gas was actually
received.

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SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS

Purchased Gas Received in Distribution Service Area (City
Gate) (item 1.0):

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Report the total volume and cost, including taxes, of purchased
gas received in your distribution service area during the month. If
your suppliers do not bill on a calendar month basis, base your
report on the billing periods most nearly matching the designated
report month. Volumes should represent all gas physically
received for sale and delivery to consumers, whether purchased
from pipeline companies, marketers, brokers, producers or other
sources, or exchange gas, or company-owned gas received from
storage.

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Costs should represent the total cost of those volumes, including
any and all demand charges, commodity charges, monthly
minimum bill and/or take-or-pay charges, surcharges, refunds in
the form of reduced charges, charges incidental to underground
storage of company-owned gas, and transportation charges paid or
incurred to deliver gas to your distribution service area.
Net gains or losses associated with financial hedges are to be
included for the report month in which the gas associated with the
hedge is received.
Only report receipts of gas in your distribution service area during
the report period and for which full delivered costs, including any
separately stated transportation cost, are regularly recorded. The
data collected are not intended to represent, and will not be
portrayed as representing, the total cost of gas sold during the
report month.
Respondents such as producers and pipeline companies, who use
transportation or transmission system supply to provide service to
consumers directly from their lines, for which delivered costs are
not separately recorded, should enter “NR” for Not Recorded and
briefly describe their operations in the area provided for comments
on their initial report.

Customer counts should reflect the average number of customers
in each end-use category for the report month. Report as the
number of customers, the number of consumers attached to your
system during each month. Each dwelling, building, plant,
establishment, or location is to be counted as a separate consumer,
for the purpose of this report, whether or not centrally billed and
whether or not provided with more than one type of service (e.g.,
firm and interruptible). Customers that switch from sales to
transportation customers during the report month should be
reported in the category in which they spent the majority of days
during the report month in order to avoid double-counting.
Revenues reported should be gross revenues, including any and all
system charges or minimum bill amounts, commodity charges,
taxes, surcharges, adjustments or other charges billed for the gas
delivered. Amounts refunded in the form of reduced bills should
be reflected. Refunds to consumers in the form of check refunds
should be excluded but the total refunded should be reported in the
area provided for comments. For customers on level payment,
deferred payment, or similar plans, amounts ultimately to be paid
for the volumes, delivered should be reported. In the event your
regularly maintained records do not include all charges for which
customers are billed, for example local sales taxes, provide a
comment of your initial submission explaining the type of charges
excluded in the area provided for comments. Net gains or losses
associated with financial hedges are to be included for the report
month in which the gas associated with the hedge is delivered. All
revenue values are to be rounded to the nearest whole number in
dollars.
Note: Pipeline companies are not required to provide revenue data
for deliveries of gas that they do not own.

Classification of Consumers
Consumers should be classified by category in accordance with
the definitions provided below.

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Multiple-use or combination consumers such as apartment
buildings with commercial establishments, retail stores with
attached dwellings, or industrial plants with on-site office space or
buildings served from a common meter are to be classified based
upon the predominate volumetric usage. If certain categories, e.g.,
residential and commercial, are carried on a combined basis in
your accounts, please provide your best estimate of the
information for each category separately. Report deliveries
directly to your company-owned commercial, industrial, or
electric power facilities in the appropriate category.
Deliveries to end-use consumers are to be reported based on the
following definitions:
Residential: An energy-consuming sector that consists of living
quarters for private households. Common uses of energy
associated with this sector include space heating, water heating, air
conditioning, lighting, refrigeration and cooking. The residential
sector includes mobile homes and apartment buildings (whether
privately owned or publicly subsidized) and excludes institutional
living quarters.

Heat content of gas delivered to customers (Btu/cu. ft.)
The average heat content (Btu) should be computed by summing
the total Btu delivered each month (volume delivered directly to
consumers multiplied by average Btu content per unit volume) and
dividing by the total volume delivered directly to consumers
during that month. The average Btu content for each month should
be that used for billing purposes whether billing was on a therm
(100,000 Btu) or decatherm (1,000,000 Btu) basis. The value for
heat content is expected to be in the range of 900 to 1200 Btu/cu.
ft.

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Commercial: An energy-consuming sector that consists of
service-providing facilities and equipment of: businesses; Federal,
State, and local governments; and other private and public
organizations, such as religious, social, or fraternal groups. The
commercial sector includes institutional living quarters. It also
includes sewage treatment facilities. Common uses of energy
associated with this sector include space heating, water heating, air
conditioning, lighting, refrigeration, cooking, and running a wide
variety of other equipment. Note: This sector includes generators
that produce electricity and/or useful thermal output primarily to
support the activities of the above-mentioned commercial
establishments. Vehicle fuel and distribution company use
are not to be included in the commercial sector.

How to Report on Type of Consumer on Form EIA-857
Master-metered apartments
Residential
Mobile homes
Residential
Multi-family dwellings, individually metered
Residential
Single-family dwellings
Residential
Churches and hospitals
Commercial
Government (local, State and Federal) agencies Commercial
Hotels
Commercial
Non-manufacturing military installations
Commercial
Restaurants
Commercial
Retail stores
Commercial
Schools and universities
Commercial
Wholesale stores
Commercial
Agriculture, forestry and fisheries
Industrial
Mining (including oil and gas extraction)
Industrial
Manufacturing
Industrial
Regulated electric utilities
Electric
Power
Nonregulated electricity generators
Electric
Power

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The size of an operation does not affect consumer classification.
Large commercial operations should be classified as commercial,
not industrial. Likewise, small industrial operations should be
classified as industrial, not commercial.

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Industrial: An energy-consuming sector that consists of all
facilities and equipment used for producing, processing, or
assembling goods. The industrial sector encompasses the
following types of activity: manufacturing (North American
Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes 31-33); agriculture,
forestry, and fishing and hunting; mining, including oil and gas
extraction; and construction. Overall energy use in this sector is
largely for process heat and powering machinery, with lesser
amounts used for facility heating. Natural gas is also used as raw
material inputs to manufactured products. Note: This sector
includes generators that produce electricity and/or useful thermal
output primarily to support the above-mentioned industrial
activities.
Electric power: An energy-consuming sector that consists of
electricity-only plants and combined heat and power (CHP) plants,
whose primary business is to sell electricity, or electricity and
heat, to the public -- i.e., NAICS 22 plants
Other (not included in above categories; specify type): This
category is only to be used for service provided directly to
consumers for which you are uncertain of the correct category
from among residential, commercial, industrial, and electric
power. Please use the space provided to specify the type of
delivery you report here.
Note: Vehicle fuel is not to be reported on Form EIA-857.

If billing was on a volumetric basis and your company did not
measure the Btu content, contact your supplier for the information.
If the Btu content was not measured at any point, enter a "U" for
Unknown.

PROVISIONS REGARDING
CONFIDENTIALITY OF INFORMATION
Information reported on Form EIA-857 will be protected and not
disclosed to the public to the extent that it satisfies the criteria for
exemption under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5
U.S.C. §552, the DOE regulations, 10 C.F.R. §1004.11,
implementing the FOIA, and the Trade Secrets Act, 18 U.S.C.
§1905. The EIA will protect your information in accordance with
its confidentiality and security policies and procedures.
The Federal Energy Administration Act requires the EIA to
provide company-specific data to other Federal agencies when
requested for official use. The information reported on this form
may also be made available, upon request, to another component
of the Department of Energy (DOE); or to any Committee of
Congress, the General Accounting Office, or other Federal
agencies authorized by law to receive such information. A court
of competent jurisdiction may obtain this information in response
to an order. The information may be used for any nonstatistical
purposes such as administrative, regulatory, law enforcement, or
adjudicatory purposes.
Disclosure limitation procedures are not applied to the statistical
data published from EIA-857 survey information. Thus, there may
be some statistics that are based on data from fewer than three

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respondents, or that are dominated by data from one or two large
respondents.
In these cases, it may be possible for a
knowledgeable person to estimate the information reported by a
specific respondent.

FILING FORMS WITH FEDERAL
GOVERNMENT AND ESTIMATED
REPORTING BURDEN

SANCTIONS

Respondents are not required to file or reply to any Federal
collection of information unless it has a valid OMB control
number. Public reporting burden for this collection of information
is estimated to average 3.5 hours per response, including the time
of reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources,
gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and
reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding
this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of
information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to:
Energy Information Administration, Statistics and Methods
Group, EI-70, 1000 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, DC
20585; and to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs,
Office of Management and Budget, Washington, DC 20503.

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The timely submission of Form EIA-857 by those required to
report is mandatory under Section 13(b) of the Federal Energy
Administration Act of 1974 (FEA Act) (Public Law 93-275), as
amended. Failure to respond may result in a civil penalty of not
more than $2,750 each day for each violation, or a fine of not
more than $5,000 each day for each willful violation. The
government may bring a civil action to prohibit reporting
violations, which may result in a temporary restraining order or a
preliminary or permanent injunction without bond. In such civil
action, the court may also issue mandatory injunctions
commanding any person to comply with these reporting
requirements.

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