After more than a year of wrangling between Oklahoma Natural GasCo. and the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) an agreement onwhich of the LDC’s transmission and distribution assets will beregulated and which will be unregulated and open to competitivebidding has been hammered out.

Once sufficient competition exists in the marketplace,competitors will bid to provide service using the unbundled assets.Unbundled assets are to be removed from ONG’s rate base.

“The real significance is that this order paves the way for usto solicit competitive bids for upstream services to serve thenatural gas company,” said ONG spokesman Don Sherry. Unbundledservice is to begin Nov. 1, 2000. “We’re pleased with it. We thinkit represents a reasonable compromise, and it gives finality anddefinition to what part of the system is what and allows us toproceed with unbundling.”

Regulators and the utility battled since July 1998 over some ofthe changes ordered by the commission in an upstream unbundlinginterim order with ONG appealing the order to the state SupremeCourt.

Downstream distribution assets are: Alva/Jet/Cleo Springs;Bristow; Enid; Kingfisher; L-62; Muskogee (North); Oklahoma City;Shawnee; Stillwater (less Line A-375 upstream of the Stillwatercitygate; Tulsa; miscellaneous pipelines; Woodward; Wynnewood;Q-19-D, Q-20-D, and Q-60-D of the Line Q system.

Upstream transmission assets are: F-195; Line Q (less Q-19-D,Q-20-D, and Q-60-D); Muskogee (South); Okmulgee; Ponca City; R-909;Line A-375 (upstream of the Stillwater citygate); and Waurika.

A rate case is the next step, and one is scheduled for February.In July, ONG gathering and storage assets were removed from thecompany’s rate base, and in November ONG will begin buying gasbased on competitive bids.

The stipulated agreement was worked out among commission staff,the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office, Enogex Inc., Transok LLC,and ONG, Kansas Gas Service Co., and ONEOK Gas Transportation LLC,each a division of ONEOK Inc. The three commissioners votedunanimously.

“Today’s order is an historic step in providing gas utilityservices by redesigning the traditional monopoly to bring thebenefits of market competition to ratepayers,” Commissioner BobAnthony said last week.

Joe Fisher, Houston

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