Provisions in a rate schedule (jurisdictional) or contract (nonjurisdictional) requiring customers to purchase minimum annual volumes of gas or, under certain circumstances, pay the fixed cost portion of the commodity rate on any volumes which fall below the minimum volume level. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has stated in Atlantic Seaboard the three factors needed to justify a minimum bill: (1) protecting the pipeline against the risk of not recovering the fixed costs in the commodity component; (2) protecting full requirements customers from bearing a disproportionate share of the fixed costs resulting from swings off the system by partial requirements customers; and (3) protecting customers from take-or-pay liabilities that the pipeline might otherwise bear.

This definition is in context to Natural Gas. See more contextual defintions for Minimum Commodity Bill.