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Show TO NON- ' oTIt natural ' GAS SER- ; 03MPANY 'N0-C7W652 ' oF UTAH vs. GAS SERVICE ;: to is u.s.a Jfd the Order of ".Court, dated 5,1981, : ,:EASE TAKE vflCE: ware now pending United States ' r..ncl Court for the :::ct of Utah certain ; '."factions seeking tre-images tre-images for alleged offi of the antitrust ':, with respect to the 'M natural gas. One of actions, State of ; . Utah Gas Ser- Co., et al.. was Zm by the State of ;.;'h on its own behalf as .chaser of natural .:;m defendant Utah Service Co., and as Z-.'& patriae on behalf business "natural purchasers of ;y JT-jai gas from Utah is a Service Co. pjU) THIS NOTICE USEFULLY IF YOU ?l'E0R HAVE BEEN A E BUSINESS, UTAH-WIDEST UTAH-WIDEST CUSTOMER p. ij; LTAH CAS SERVICE lv COMPANY. YOUR r; legal RIGHTS MAY r. AFFECTED. The t- ill has not expressed ;. a opinion as to the ( lints of the claims or E fees asserted by any t to this litigation. s Notice is published IV r the sole purpose of in- 1 rming you of ' the dency of this litigation of a proposed settle-d settle-d so that you can Lie what steps to take -i regard thereto. In this lawsuit the State 'Utah has alleged that, tinning at least as ear- 2 as 1972 and continuing ... ij&h February 7,1980, ' . '''defendants, Utah Gas J nice Co., Gary Energy p "P. Chevron U.S.A., ' j Amerada Hess Cor-ir Cor-ir Mapco, Inc. and Ten-j. Ten-j. a Oil Co., unlawfully nj N to fix, raise, main- !. and stabilize the ! . t:e of natural gas sold : Utah Gas Service Co. I State of Utah and to j'.aral person, non-w.ess non-w.ess purchasers. The h' of Utah has alleged -it this agreement has in an undeter-(i undeter-(i '-. amount, the State 1 ! the natural person, business purchasers. 1 ''Sate of Utah's claim 'Fv w damages treble the ! l proved to have tt suffered by the State fc- Utah and by such f 'al persons, for in-x in-x Kdive relief, and for a 0 'onable attorney's it J1 defendants have the allegations 1- 4 have denied that if testate of Utah or y -h natural persons - lJ "titled to any Silvery. r;. Jon are a member of f Parens patriae class lre not a business 'f you are a Utah P nt and if you have ?. Mtural gas K ;.fn the time period If you are a ,... . 0 class to it-" y J"1 included in rrbyany judg. V herein af-vr af-vr ( the rights of the S ; ,hany settlement or .affecting the av,anydmina-;r; av,anydmina-;r; c a'f mg the class, A It 8 t ik. , "dudod y ij U,eCwt,.ddr.tt- ,U Fbruy 17. 'Vvlj, you "elude 1)6,161(1 l;cou?eUr!dStates C ? South at ?Iebruary2o, "" the propced settlement of this litigation, described describ-ed hereinbelow, should be finally approved. You need not appear at that hearing to show cause why the proposed settlement settle-ment should not be approved ap-proved as fair, reasonable, and adequate, ade-quate, and why a final judgment dismissing the 'lawsuit with prejudice should not be enetered. 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 February 17, 1981. A copy of any such notice of objection must be sent to Peter C. Collins, Assistant Attorney At-torney General, State of Utah, 419 Boston Building, Salt Lake City, Utah 84111. Any class member who does not make his objection in the planner provided herein shall be deemed to have waived his objection and shall be forever foreclosed foreclos-ed from making any objection, ob-jection, 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 been alleged in, arise out of, are incident to, or are in any way connected con-nected with the State of Utah's complaint in this lawsuit or which involve certain intrastate gas supply contracats between bet-ween Utah Gas Service Co., and the other defendants. defen-dants. ; The most important benefit of the proposed settlement, to the State of Utah and to the parens patriaeClass" is" that defendant Tenneco Oil Co. will sell to Utah Gas Service Co., for resale to its customers, from approximately ap-proximately March 1, 1981 through at Least January 1, 1985, a large supply (minimum average of 4,000 standard Mcf per day) of natural gas which will not otherwise other-wise be available to Utah Gas Service Co., and which will be, by federal law and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rules, priced considerably con-siderably lower than most of the natural gas currently being purchased purchas-ed by Utah Gas Service Co. and resold to its customers. Utah Gas Service Ser-vice Co. currently buys a great percentage of its natural gas from Northwest Nor-thwest Pipeline Company. Com-pany. That gas includes, in large part, Canadian gas not subject to United States Government price controls. The proposed new Tenneco Oil Co. supply sup-ply of natural gas will, it is projected, totally replace the Northwest Pipeline gas in the summer sum-mer months and will replace a substantial part of the Utah Gas Service Co. is legally allowed to charge for the natural gas it sells to its customers is regulated by the Utah Public Service Commission, Commis-sion, because that price bears a direct relation to the price Utah Gas Service Ser-vice Co. pays for it, and because the proposed settlement set-tlement expressly requires re-quires that Utah Gas Service Ser-vice Co. take whatever steps are reasonably necessary to assure that the price benefit of the new Tenneco gas supply is passed on to Utah Gas Service Co. customers, such customers, including in-cluding the parens patriae class members, will benefit from the new Tenneco supply of gas contemplated by the proposed pro-posed settlement. The natural gas which will be sold to Utah Gas Service Co., by Tenneco Oil Co. under the proposed propos-ed settlement is gas whose price is governed by Section 102 or Section 103 of the federal Natural ; , Gas Policy Act of 1978. ' - The wells are located in the state of Oklahoma. As of January 1, 1981, the Northwest Pipeline price per MMBTU of natural gas was $3.5014. As of that same date the total price of Section 102 gas (including production taxes and estimated transportation and compression com-pression costs) was $3.1977. Both the Northwest Nor-thwest Pipeline price and the Section 102 and Section Sec-tion 103 prices are expected ex-pected to increase above these amounts. Although no one can be certain, it is expected by most people associated with this litigation that the differential dif-ferential between the Northwest Pipeline price and the Section 102 and Section 103 prices will increase. in-crease. The projected cost savings to Utah Gas Service Co. from the proposed pro-posed purchases of the new Tenneco gas, all or most of which will be passed on to the customers of Utah Gas Service Co., including members of the parens patriae class, is, for 1981 alone, $318,821. Members of the parens patriae class account for 25-30 of the natural gas sold each year by Tah Gas Service Co. The proposed settlement settle-ment agreement also calls for Utah Gas Service Ser-vice Co. and the other defendants to petition the Utah Public Service Commission Com-mission to issue an order authorizing Utah Gas Service Ser-vice Co. to honor the demands of the other defendants and Cordillera Cor-dillera Corporation, the current parent company of Utah Gas Service Co., for payment to them of all monies pertaining to collected, col-lected, and certain natural gas price increases, in-creases, together with interest in-terest earned thereon, claimed by the other defendants and Cordillera Cor-dillera Corporation, with respect to certain intrastate in-trastate eas Durchase contracts where Utah -GaS'Service Co. is buyer and one or more of the other defendants or Cordillera Cor-dillera Corporation is seller, which monies have been or will be collected by Utah Gas Service Co. from its customers and which have not yet been paid to these defendants, their affiliates, subsidiaries, sub-sidiaries, or parents, including in-cluding Cordillera Corporation. Cor-poration. Utah Gas Service Ser-vice Co. has collected these monies from its customers and impounded impound-ed them in special accounts ac-counts because there' have been disputes regarding regar-ding the proper interpretation inter-pretation of those intrastate in-trastate gas purchase contracts con-tracts as to whether Utah Gas Service Co. is required re-quired to pay the other defendants and Cordillera Cor-dillera Corporation amounts reflecting such Natural Gas Policy Act price increases and whether Utah Gas Service Ser-vice Co. is required to reimburse the other defendants and Cordillera Cor-dillera Corporation for their payment of such production taxes. The proposed settlement settle-ment also calls for the other defendants and Cordillera Cor-dillera Corporation to relinquish their claims against Utah Gas Service Co. for production taxes Utah Gas Service Co. has not collected from its customers with regard to gas Utah Gas Service Co. purchased from the other defendants or Cordillera Corporation from June 21, 1974 through July 31, 1976, and for Utah Gas Service Co. to relinquish its claims, if any it has, against its customers with regard to said uncollected un-collected production taxes. tax-es. The proposed settlement settle-ment also calls for the defendants not to oppose a petition to be made by the Attorney General of the State of Utah before the Utah Public Service Commission requesting a surcharge to be collected by Utah Gas Service Co. from members of the parens patriae class benefiting from the less expensive natural gas to be provided to them pursuant pur-suant to the proposed settlement, set-tlement, the proceeds of which surcharge, not to exceed an aggregate total of $35,000 are to be paid to ' the State of Utah as com-pensaiton com-pensaiton for the legal work done by the Office of the Attorney General with regard to this lawsuit. In the event that the Utah Public Service Commission, in response to that petition, orders a surcharge of less than an aggregate total of $10,000 the defendants will pay the State of Utah the difference dif-ference between the amount of the surcharge ordered and $10,000. 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 through counsel of your choice, should be addressed 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 name and number of 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, Assistant Attorney General, State of Utah, 419 Boston Building, Salt Lake City, Utah 84111, (801) 533-1262. 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: February 5,, 1981. PAUL L. BADGER Clerk ; United States District Court . District of Utah Published in the Vernal Express Feb. 12, 1981. |