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Show NOTICE NOTICE TO NON BUSINESS, NATURAL PERSON, UTAH RESIDENT RESI-DENT CUSTOMERS OF UTAH GAS SERVICE COMPANY IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF UTAH, CENTRAL DIVISION. DIVI-SION. STATE OF UTAH VS. UTAH GAS SERVICE CO., et al. Civil No. C79-0652 Pursuant to 15 U.S.C. 15c and the Order of this court, dated September 2, 1981. PLEASE TAKE NOTICE: This NOTICE supersedes that which appeared ap-peared in the Vernal Express Ex-press of Wednesday, February 11, 1981; the Moab-Times-Independent of Wednesday, February 11, 1981; the San Juan Record of Thursday, February 12, 1981; the Salt Lake Tribune of Wednesday, February 11, 1981, and Sunday, Feb. 15, 1981, and Tuesday, February 17, 1981; and the Deseret News of Wednesday, February 11, 1981; and Tuesday, February 17. 1981. mere are now pending in the United States District Court for the District of Utah certain civil actions seeking treble tre-ble damages for alleged vioaltions of the antitrust laws with respect to the sale of natural gas. One of these actions, State of Utah v. Utah Gas Service Co., et al., was brought by the State of Utah, on its own behalf as a purchaser pur-chaser of natural gas from defendant Utah Gas Service Co., and as parens patriae on behalf of non business "natural person" purchasers of natural gas from Utah Gas Service Co. READ THIS NOTICE CAREFULLY IF YOU ARE OR HAVE BEEN A NON BUSINESS, UTAH RESIDENT CUSTOMER OF UTAH GAS SERVICE COMPANY. YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS MAY BE AFFECTED. The Court has not expressed any opinion as to the merits of the ' claims or defenses asserted by any party to this litigation. This NOTICE is published publish-ed for the sole purpose of informing you of the pendency of this litigation and of a proposed settlement settle-ment so that you can decide what steps to take with regard thereto. In this lawsuit the State of Utah has alleged that, beginning at least as early ear-ly as 1972 and continuing through February 7, 1980, the defendants. Utah Gas Service Co., Gary Energy Corp., Chevron U.S.A., Inc., Amerada Hess Cor-p., Cor-p., Mapco, Inc., and Ten-neco Ten-neco Oil Co., unlawfully agreed to fix, raise, maintain, main-tain, and stabilize the price of natural gas sold to Utah Gas Service Co. by the other defendants and in turn to fix, raise, maintain, and stabilize the price of natural gas sold by Utah Gas Service Co. to the State of Utah and to such natural person, per-son, non business purchasers. pur-chasers. The State of Utah has alleged that this agreement has injured, in an undetermined amount, the State of Utah and such natural person, non business purchasers. The State of Utah's claim is for damages treble the amount proved to have been suffered by the State of Utah and by such natural persons, for injunctive in-junctive relief, and for a reasonable attorney's fee. The defendants have denied the allegations and have denied that either the State of Utah or any such natural persons are entitled to any recovery. You are a member of the parens patriae class if you are not a business entity, en-tity, if you are a Utah resident, and if you have purchased natural gas from Utah Gas Service Co. within the time period state above. If you are a member of the class to which this NOTICE applies, ap-plies, you will be included in and bound by any judgment judg-ment entered herein affecting af-fecting the rights of the class, unless you file a written election to be excluded ex-cluded from the class with the Clerk of the Court, addressed as indicated in-dicated hereinbelow, postmarked no later than September 11, 1981. If you exclude yourself from the class, you will remain free to pursue on your own behalf whatever legal rights you may have. A copy of any such election of exclusion must be sent to Peter C. Collins, Col-lins, Special ' Assistant Utah Attorney General, 424 South Fifth East, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84102. A hearing will be held in the courtroom of the Honorable Bruce S. Jenkins, 230 United States Courthouse, 350 South Main Street, Salt Lake City, Ci-ty, Utah, on September 15, 1981 at 1:30 p.m., at which hearing the Court will determine whether the proposed settlement of this litigation, described describ-ed hereinbelow, should be finally approved. You need not appear at that hearing unless you object to the proposed settlement. settle-ment. You may appear at that hearing to show cause why the proposed settlement should not be approved as fair, reasonable, and ade--quate, and why a final judgment dismissing the lawsuit with prejudice should not be entered. No person will be heard at that hearing unless written writ-ten notice of intention to appear, stating all grounds for his objection or other statement of position, is filed with the Clerk of the Court, addressed ad-dressed as indicated hereinbelow, postmarked no later than September 11, 1981. A copy of any such notice of objection must be sent to Peter C. Collins, Special Assistant Utah Attorney General, 424 South Fifth East, Salt Lake City, Utah,, 84102. Any class member who does not make his objection objec-tion in the manner provided provid-ed herein shall be deemed to have waived his objection objec-tion and shall be forever foreclosed from making any objection, by appeal or otherwise, to the settlement. settle-ment. The proposed settlement settle-ment of the litigation will cause the State of Utah's complaint to be dismissed with prejudice. If the settlement set-tlement is approved by the Court, each class member who does not elect to be excluded from the class will be deemed to have covenanted not to sue any of the defendants on any claims which have been alleged in, arise out of, are incident to, or are in any way connected with the State of Utah's claims in this lawsuit or which involve certain intrastate in-trastate gas supply contracts con-tracts between Utah Gas Service Co. and the other defendants. The terms of the pro- j puseu aciuciucin di c act forth on the face of a letter, let-ter, with attached Stipulation, that has been marked as Exhibit "1" to a document on file in this matter, available for your inspection, dated . August 24, 1981 and entitled entitl-ed "State of Utah's Motion Mo-tion for Order Approving Publication of Proposed New Notice to Parens Patriae Class." The terms of the proposed settlement set-tlement include those set forth in the following paragraphs. If the proposed settlement settle-ment is approved: 1. Tenneco Oil Company Com-pany will exercise its option, op-tion, pursuant to a Gas Purchase Contract between bet-ween Tenneco Oil Co. and Northwest Pipeline Corporation, Cor-poration, to withdraw from dedication to Northwest Nor-thwest Pipeline Corporation Corpora-tion and sell to Utah Gas Service Co. (hereinafter, "UGSC") 50 percent of its . interest in the production of certain gas wells located in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, and also activate a Gas Purchase Pur-chase Contract between UGSC and Tenneco Oil Co. providing for the sale to UGSC of natural gas produced in various counties coun-ties of Oklahoma. The amount of gas available to UGSC for resale to its customers shall be all of the gas available to UGSC pursuant to those gas purchase pur-chase contracts. The Oklahoma gas shall .be transported pursuant to a transportation agreement agree-ment between UGSC and Mountain Fuel Supply Company, as well as pursuant pur-suant to transportation agreements with Delhi Pipe Line Company and Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Company and an agreement with Gary Energy Corporation providing pro-viding for compression. The Wyoming gas shall be transported pursuant to a transportation agreement agree-ment to be negotiated by UGSC with Northwest Pipeline Corporation subject sub-ject to the approval of the State of Utah. Actual call up and purchase of the gas shall be at the option and discretion of UGSC, based on its current needs and supply. This Wyoming Wyom-ing and Oklahoma gas will not be available to UGSC, and hence to its customers, if the proposed propos-ed settlement is not approved. ap-proved. The price of the Wyoming and Oklahoma gas is projected, for the period of said Gas Purchase Pur-chase Contracts, to be considerably lower than the price of gas which currently comprises a major part of UGSC's current supply and which will be replaced by the gas to be sold to UGSC under the terms of said Gas Purchase Contracts. The natural gas shall be made available to UGSC's customers under these contracts and upon the following terms and conditions : A. The terms of the Gas Sales Contracts shall commence as soon as practicable but not later than October l, 1981, and shall not terminate before January 1, 1985. B. The sale of natural gas to UGSC as provided above shall be at the Section Sec-tion 102 price or Section 103 price, each as defined in the Natural Gas Policy Act, the regulations promulgated pro-mulgated thereunder, and all subsequent amendments to said regulations or said Act, plus applicable reimbursements, reim-bursements, including production taxes, and monthly price and other adjustments, as provided in said Act or regulations. C. UGSC shall purchase the aforesaid natural gas at the wellhead and shall be responsible for transportation, exchange and compression costs incurred in-curred required to deliver the gas to its customers, which shall be included in its rates to its customers. Such transportation, exchange, ex-change, and compression costs for the Oklahoma gas shall be as set forth in the Mountain Fuel Supply, Supp-ly, Delhi, Panhandle and Gary agreements referred refer-red to above, and for the Wyoming gas as set forth in the Northwest Pipeline transportation agreement agree-ment referred to above. . D. UGSC will reflect, in its gas balancing account, any cost benefit to it which it realizes on the purchase of said natural eas. and to take whatever additional steps are reasonably necessary to assure that any cost benefit is promptly passed pass-ed on to its customers. 2. Cordillera Corporation Corpora-tion and defendants other than UGSC will relinquish all claims which they have in their own capacities against UGSC for uncollected production produc-tion taxes relating to purchases pur-chases of gas by UGSC from said defendants or Cordillera Corporation for the period June 21, 1974 thorugh July 31, 1976, and UGSC will relinquish its claims, if any, against its customers for said uncollected un-collected production taxes. tax-es. By such relinquishment, relinquish-ment, it is understood that claims of non parties to the above actions for production taxes during this period are not affected. af-fected. 3. The Utah Public Service Ser-vice Commission will be asked to issue an order releasing certain funds impounded by UGSC pursuant pur-suant to existing orders of the Utah Public Service Commission, together with interest at 6 percent from the date collected, with respect to the intrastate in-trastate gas purchase contracts where UGSC is purchaser and one or more defendants or Cordillera Cor-dillera Corporation is seller, which monies have been collected by UGSC from its customers, impounded im-pounded and not paid to these defendants, their affiliates, parents, or subsidiaries, sub-sidiaries, including Cordillera Cor-dillera Corporation. (Such an order, dated August 21, 1981, has now been entered by the Utah Public Service Commission.) Commis-sion.) Said funds shall be paid by UGSC to the customers of UGSC and their attorneys, with the remainder going to the named defendants and Cordillera Corporation, in their pro rata shares. The State of Utah and the members of this class who do not exclude themselves from the proposed pro-posed settlement' will waive any and all claims against UGSC relating to said funds and any and all corresponding rate adjustments ad-justments by UGSC. 4. The defendants will make available for the benefit of the class of non business, natural person, Utah resident customers of UGSC, the class's fair share of the sum of $30,000, based on the class's percentage of the total consumption of UGSC gas by all UGSC customers during the twelve months commencing commenc-ing October 1, 1980 and ending September 30, 1981. 5. The ' defendants will pay to the Utah Attorney General the sum of TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND THOU-SAND DOLLARS ($25,000) as partial recompense for State of Utah attorneys' time spent in the pursuit of this lawsuit. 6. The State of Utah will (1) furnish the defendants, defen-dants, Cordillera Corporation, Cor-poration, and Standard Oil Company of California, Califor-nia, general releases discharging any and all claims alleged in, arising out of, incident to, or in any way connected with the complaints on file in this lawsuit or its companion compa-nion lawsuits, including but not limited to any antitrust an-titrust laws of the United States, any violation of Utah law, any violation of public policy, andor the intrastate gas supply contracts con-tracts between the defendants defen-dants or Cordillera Corporation Cor-poration and UGSC and between Chevron, USA, Inc., and the owners of the Altonah and Bluebell natural gas plants; and (2) dismiss this lawsuit, with prejudice, with each of the parties to this lawsuit to bear its own costs of suit except as otherwise expressly provided pro-vided in the proposed set-. tlement agreement. ' ? All documents which you desire to file of record in this case, including any request to be excluded from the class and an appearance, ap-pearance, directly or through counsel of your choice, should be addressed ad-dressed to: "Clerk, United States District Court, District of Utah, 350 South Main Street, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84101." All documents should also refer to the namo nnH numhpr rf this action: "State of Utah vs. Utah Gas Service Co., et al., C-79-0652." If you have any questions ques-tions concerning matters raised in this NOTICE, please address your questions ques-tions to Peter C. Collins, Special Assistant Utah Attorney General, 424 South Fifth East, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84102, (801-533-7621). The pleadings and other records in this litigation may be examined examin-ed and copied at any time during regular office hours at the Office of the Clerk, United States District Court, District of Utah, Second Floor, 350 South Main Street, Salt Lake City, Utah. Dated: September 2, 1981, United States District Court District of Utah Published in the Vernal Express September 10, 1981. |
