The Oklahoma Supreme Court gave its blessing to $3.07 billion in ratepayer-backed bonds to pay off abnormal energy expenses four public utility companies incurred during the winter storm of February 2021.
That included $725 million for Public Service Co. of Oklahoma, $95 million for Summit Utilities (formerly CenterPoint), $1.45 billion for Oklahoma Natural Gas Co., and $800 million for Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co.
The eventual total was approximately $4.5 billion when carrying costs, interest, and other expenses were factored in.
• Documents filed by ONG claimed a total of $1,338,349,589 in storm-related expenses that included $1,284,101,405 in extreme gas purchase costs, $33,381,850 in extraordinary costs, and $20,366,335 in carrying costs.
The “typical” ONG residential customer will pay an extra $5.72 to $7.82 per month for 25 years to retire that debt, records indicate.
ONG serves 913,000 residential, commercial, and industrial customers in Oklahoma. The utility provides natural gas to more than four dozen cities and towns in 10 southwest Oklahoma counties.
Those include Fort Sill, Elgin, Fletcher, Apache, Walters, Carnegie, Cement, Cyril, Fort Cobb, Marlow, Rush Springs, Duke, Eldorado, Davidson, Frederick, Grandfield, Manitou, Tipton, Comanche, Duncan, County Line, Loco, Velma, Gotebo, Hobart, Lone Wolf, Mountain Park, Snyder, Mountain View, and Waurika.
• OG&E stated in a filing with the Corporation Commission that its total deferred costs were $750,396,969. Those included $739,116,229 in total extreme gas and purchased power costs, and $11,280,740 in fees and carrying costs.
A typical residential customer will pay more than $2 each month for 28 years to pay off OG&E’s securitization bonds.
OG&E has “a few customers on the far eastern side of Stephens County, near Ratliff City,” and serves Ringling and Cornish in Jefferson County, Senior Communications Specialist Carson Cunningham told Southwest Ledger. “We have some transmission operations in other counties” in southwest Oklahoma “but do not serve any customers there.”
• Invoices for PSO’s winter storm costs totaled $693 million. Those included natural gas expenses and electricity purchases from other entities, the utility’s parent, AEP, reported in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
In comparison, PSO’s fuel bills for an entire year range from about $500 million to $600 million, a company official told the Ledger; the company’s fuel expense in 2020 was $520 million, he said.
To retire PSO’s securitization bonds, the typical residential customer who uses 1,100 kWh a month will pay an estimated $4.06 a month for 20 years, the company estimates.
PSO had 575,846 customers in 232 cities and towns in eastern and southwestern Oklahoma at the end of last year, the company reported; almost 86% of those are residential customers.
The utility serves more than three dozen communities in southwest Oklahoma, including Lawton, Altus, Duncan, Cache, Elgin, Fletcher, Porter Hill, Sterling, Temple, Hobart, Apache, Temple, Rush Springs, Carnegie, Cement, Cyril, Davidson, Duke, Elmer, Fort Cobb, Frederick, Gotebo, Gould, Grandfield, Granite, Headrick, Hollis, Lone Wolf, Manitou, Martha, Mountain Park, Mountain View, Roosevelt, Snyder, Terral, Tipton and Waurika.
• In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission the week of Feb. 2226, 2021, CenterPoint Energy revealed that because of “extraordinary increases in the price of natural gas” the company’s estimated fuel purchase costs for February that year exceeded corporate plans by $2.5 billion.
CenterPoint’s $78.5 million gas bill for the two-week period of Feb. 7-21, 2021, “was more than three times the company’s cost of gas in all of 2020,” the Oklahoma Corporation Commission was told by Brett Jerasa, assistant treasurer of Center-Point Energy Services Corp.
The OCC approved the sale of Houston-based CenterPoint’s assets in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texarkana, Texas, to Summit Utilities, a Colorado-based subsidiary of Southern Col Midco, on Nov. 16, 2021. The sale closed on Jan. 10, 2022, the Arkansas Public Service Commission announced.
CenterPoint served almost 100,000 residential, commercial, industrial and transportation customers in western and southeastern Oklahoma as of Dec. 31, 2020.
Cities and towns in southwest Oklahoma that are supplied with natural gas by Summit Utilities include Altus, Apache, Arapaho, Blair, Burns Flat, Chickasha, Comanche, Duke, Duncan, Elgin, Fletcher, Lawton, Mangum, Marlow, Martha, Ninnekah, Olustee, Pocasset, Sterling and Temple.
A typical Summit natural- gas customer will pay an extra $4.36 each month for 15 years to pay off the CenterPoint/ Summit securitization bonds.
• Oklahoma Watch reported in March that Arkansas Oklahoma Gas Corp. did not have enough natural gas costs from the February 2021 winter storm to merit issuing ratepayer- backed bonds.
Instead, the utility got approval to recover $18 million in winter storm fuel costs from its Oklahoma customers over 15 years under a utility accounting method called a regulatory asset. That amount has been reduced by $3.5 million for its Oklahoma customers because of a lawsuit the utility won in federal court against BP (formerly British Petroleum).
• The Dallas Morning News pointed out that Texas consumers will be paying until 2050 for the $6.3 billion in securitization bonds to help their utilities.