Summary: This notice is to advise all liquefied natural gas facility (LNG) operators subject to PHMSA user fee billing of a change in the LNG user fee rates to align these rates with the actual allocation of PHMSA resources to LNG program costs. Specifically, the LNG user fee rates increased to include the cost of the National Center of Excellence for LNG Safety (the Center).

Dates: LNG user fee billing change is effective for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 billing cycle.

For Further Information Contact: Jamerson Pender, Program Analyst, Information Resources Division, by phone at (202)366-0218 or e-mail at jamerson.pender@dot.gov.

Notice of LNG Facility Obligation Increase

In order to ensure that user fees assessed for each type of pipeline facility have a reasonable relationship to the allocation of departmental resources, PHMSA billed the cost of the Center to the LNG operators starting in FY 2024. The actual annual rate for a particular LNG facility of a given capacity billed each year will depend on the annual Center's program cost, gas program cost and the liquid storage at each LNG facility. PHMSA will maintain the current ratio of rates based on storage capacity reflected in the 10 tiers. For example, an LNG facility with over 500,000 barrels of storage capacity has a user fee rate that is six times the rate for a facility with less than 10,000 barrels of storage. PHMSA has been excluding mobile/temporary LNG facilities from user fee assessment since these facilities typically have very low storage volume and will continue to exclude the mobile/temporary LNG facilities from user fee assessment.

PHMSA is notifying LNG facility operators that in 2024, the LNG obligation increased by $3.8 million more than in FY 2023. The LNG obligation represents 1.6 percent of the gas assessment plus the cost of the Center. PHMSA will continue to use this methodology in future fiscal years. In future years, the cost of the Center can be expected to be up to $8.4 million, as identified in the Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying Division L – Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2023 (Pub. L. 117-328). LNG operators should expect their individual user fee assessments to reflect these levels and that the amounts in their user fee billing statements will continue to be proportional to other LNG operators of differing capacities depending on the tiers they are in. Procedures for paying the fees can be found in the annual statement and include instructions for electronic funds transfer.

Alan K. Mayberry,
Associate Administrator for Pipeline Safety