COLUMBIA GAS <CG> SEEKS CONTRACT COST RECOVERY Columbia Gas Transmission corp said it made an abbreviated, streamlined filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to recover a portion if its costs of renegotiating high-cost gas purchase contracts. Recently, the Columbia Gas System Inc pipeline subsidiary said, FERC denied on procedural grounds and without prejudice a proposal to include these costs in the company's most recent purchased gas adjustment -- or PGA -- filing. Noting it has has asked for a rehearing on the denial ruling, Columbia Gas said it would withdraw its alternative filing if the commission grantes its request for a rehearing to include the contract renegotiation costs in its PGA or consolidates this issue in the pipeline's general rate filing and permit recovery, subject to refund, effective April one. The company said the alternative filing seeks to recover about 79 mln dlrs a year through the pipeline's non-gas sales commodity rates. This annual amortization amount is based on recovery of about 653 mln drls over an 8-1/4 year period, beginning April 1, 1987. Columbia Gas said the filing would increase the pipeline commodity rates by 15.74 cts per mln Btu to 2.95 dlrs per mln. The company said it orginially sought to include these costs in its PGA since the payments to products resulted in almost five billion dlrs in prospective price relief and were not related to take-or-pay buyout costs. It explained this interpretation was based on FERC's April 10, 1985, Statement of Policy which said that only take-or-pay buyout costs must be recovered through a general rate filing under the Natural Gas Act. As a result of renegotiating contracts for high-cost gas, Columbia Gas said, it has been able to reduce the average price paid for gas purchased from Southwest producers to 1.96 dlrs per mln Btu in December 1986 from 3.64 dlrs per mln in April 1985. The pipeline said Southwestern producers account for 46 pct of its total available gas supply this year.