OPEN ACCESS AND THE EMERGENCE OF A COMPETITIVE NATURAL-GAS MARKET

Recent regulatory changes permitted natural gas pipelines to become '' open access transporters. This change in pipeline carrier status disso lved regulatory barriers to markets. This paper describes the institut ions that were developed to support exchange in gas markets and observ es and evaluates their emergence, evolution, and performance. The inst itutional and empirical evidence reveals that gas markets rapidly emer ged with the dissolution of regulatory barriers. Spot gas prices conve rged and became highly correlated. A national market for natural gas d eveloped within four years.