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Line in the Sand

The Line in the Sand is the gas industry’s common term for the Code Cut Off Date (defined in the Uniform Network Code (UNC) General Terms – Section C). This limits the duration of retrospective charges and credits, to give all parties more certainty on historic energy bills.

The Line in the Sand is currently reset annually to a date three years in the past, and rolls forward once a year on 1 April, to simplify the changes for all parties. Therefore, the Line in the Sand is always a date between three and four years in the past.

This means that no retrospective adjustments can be processed for periods before that date (once the March Amendment Invoice has been issued in late April each year).

Where a proposed adjustment or reconciliation spans the Line in the Sand date, only the post-Line in the Sand portion will be charged/credited, and any earlier periods will not be corrected, leaving the previous billed/reconciled position unchanged.

The invoicing system calculates the energy for the whole period, using the start and end dates, but splits it on the prevailing Line in the Sand date.