Natural Gas

Company-Owned Production Assets Create Stability

Commercial Energy was created to sell the gas from our second-generation family-owned production company, Ranck Oil Company, founded in 1957. Commercial Energy quickly grew past those initial gas production assets, so we created ROC Gathering to acquire gas gathering systems and additional producing wells. Having these assets in our family of companies allows us to back-to-back our contracts between end use customers and gas producers. Today, Ranck and ROCG own and gather natural gas at over 150 producing wells from Montana to California. We continually seek new acquisitions to create stable margins and support out growth throughout the Northwest and California.

Buying Made-In-USA Gas Is Good For All Of Us

Natural gas is a very competitive market with many sellers in many regions including Canada and offshore in the form of LNGs (liquefied natural gas). Our commitment is to help both the communities we live in and the industry that provides our living. So we continue to purchase, gather and produce over 95% of our total annual gas requirements from Montana and California gas producers. This production pays royalties and taxes of about 25% to our local and state governments on every dollar generated before we earn a single penny against our operating costs. Unfortunately, the utilities in the Western US rely on imported gas to meet a substantial portion of their daily requirements.

Our Connections Between Montana And California

To meet their supply needs, California utilities rely on the Nova pipeline from Alberta, Canada to the California-Oregon border. We do too, but with a twist. Our gas is produced in Montana and California but flows through Canada on the same Nova pipeline, as we transport gas between Montana and California. Depending on our supply needs our Operations Center schedules deliveries to either your meter or into in-state gas storage systems, for delivery on another day. This working inventory smooths the normal bumps in usage we all experience as the weather changes day to day. Any problems, known as imbalances, are solely Commercial Energy's responsibility. In our ten years of scheduling we have never been assessed an imbalance penalty by a utility. By operating within the same geographic regions as our clients, both the client and Commercial Energy benefit from reduced transportation and storage costs.