Corporation Commission Decides ONG Recovery Case

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission decided Tuesday it would allow Oklahoma Natural Gas (ONG) to use the state’s new securitization law to spread out fuel cost recovery related to last February’s severe winter weather over 25 years. The move effectively finances the fuel costs while ratepayers are paying them. It is estimated that without this plan, the average ONG customer would pay an extra $15.32 per month. ONG now estimates it will be $7.82 a month.

“This means that the monthly impact to ratepayers will be far less than it otherwise would have been,” Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner Dana Murphy said.

There could still be more savings in the works for ratepayers.

“The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Oklahoma Attorney General are investigating what happened to the market, and if something is found that could lower costs to ratepayers, that will be instituted,” said Murphy.

If ONG receives any kind of government grants or other funding sources for the fuel cost recovery, it will have to apply that to the debt.

Also, the Corporation Commission turned down ONG’s request to establish a termination fee, should a customer leave to use another fuel source for their needs.

Corporation Commissioner Todd Heitt believes the Commission did its job to make sure ratepayers are protected.

“At the core of this case is the fuel cost recovery by the utility as allowed by law. All parties to the case had access to all documentation concerning those costs, including the Commission’s Public Utility Division which conducted a full audit on those costs to determine that ONG did not make a profit on the fuel costs to be recovered and that other requirements were met,” said Heitt.


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