But when arguments begin next month, the committee will be on Questar's side.

Reed Warnick, the committee's attorney who successfully challenged the processing costs before the court in 2003, will now argue that Ball has no standing in the case.

"Mr. Ball petitioned to intervene in this proceeding after it was over," Warnick said in a brief filed in December before the Supreme Court. "He requested that the commission grant him full discovery rights, the right to submit testimony and cross-examine witnesses, and that the commission hold another full evidentiary hearing."

Jones said Ball is arguing an old set of facts.

"At the end of the last Supreme Court case, the PSC gave us an order that said you need to decide what to do with this gas going forward," Jones said. "We closed that case. We gave customers back their money. We started over with a new set of circumstances, new facts and examined a whole bunch of new options. And in the end, all the experts all agreed that the best thing to do was to continue processing gas because it is saving customers millions of dollars."

Warnick now maintains, like Questar, that the introduction of coal-seam gas, which accounts for up to 40 percent of Questar's annual purchased gas supply, has saved utility customers more than $36 million in fuel costs alone in recent years.

Ball's request, if granted by the court, Warnick said, "would waste state and ratepayer money in a further dispute that litigation has shown itself ill-equipped to finally resolve."

Yet it appears the litigation will continue for at least another year.

"This is one subject that I learned a great deal about," Ball said. "I feel that I owe it to consumers to stand up for their interests."

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E-mail: danderton@desnews.com