Oklahoma Administrative Code
Title 165 - Corporation Commission
Chapter 45 - Gas Service Utilities
Subchapter 1 - General Provisions
Section 165:45-1-2 - Definitions
The following words and terms, when used in this Chapter, shall have the following meaning, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise:
"Affiliate" means any person, entity, or business section, or division that directly or through one or more intermediaries controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with the entity in question. Control includes but is not limited to, the possession, directly or indirectly and whether acting alone or in conjunction with others, of the authority to direct the management or policies of a person or entity. Control may be exercised through management, ownership of voting securities or other right to vote, by contract or otherwise. A voting interest or ownership of five percent (5%) or more creates a presumption of control.
"Aggregation point" means any Commission approved interconnection point of more than one citygate at which gas can be aggregated for the purposes of supplying reliable and least cost natural gas services for more than one city or municipality.
"ANSI" means the American National Standards Institute, Inc.
"Attorney General" means the Oklahoma Attorney General.
"Business day" means Monday through Friday, excluding all legal holidays which have been declared legal holidays by law or proclamation of the Governor of Oklahoma, or those days on which mail is not delivered.
"Citygate" means the interconnection point between the local distribution facilities which are located downstream of such interconnection point and the transmission lines and/or other facilities located upstream of such interconnection point at a point in time to be determined by the Commission during the unbundling plan hearing, or as otherwise ordered by the Commission.
"Citygate gas service(s)" means any one or more of the services of natural gas supply, gathering, storage or transmission of natural gas upstream of the citygate or other delivery point acquired by a gas utility at the citygate or other delivery point pursuant to the competitive bidding procedures in Subchapter 17 of this Chapter in order to provide natural gas service to end-users on its local distribution facilities.
"Competitive bid" means a response provided based on a public competitive bidding process.
"Commission" means the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.
"Complaint" means an oral or written communication by an interested party requesting an investigation or corrective action regarding the provision of natural gas services. A complaint may be made orally, electronically or in writing, but must be made or received at the utility's offices.
"Consumer" means any person, firm, corporation, municipality, or agency, other political subdivision of the United States or the State of Oklahoma receiving any type of natural gas service. Any reference to a "customer" or "end-user" or "ratepayer" contained in a tariff, or in this Chapter, shall be deemed to mean a "consumer," unless the context clearly indicates otherwise.
"Corporate Support Services" or "Shared Services" are human resources, procurement services, information technology, regulatory services, administrative services, real estate services, legal services, accounting, environmental services, research and development, internal audit, community relations, corporate communications, financial services, financial planning and management support services shared between or among a gas utility, its parent holding company or an affiliated entity and such other services authorized by the Commission on a case-by-case basis.
"CSD" means the Consumer Services Division of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.
"Customer rate class" means a division of rates as provided by a utility's tariff for pricing natural gas service.
"Customer sector" means a major division of consumers, i.e., residential, commercial, or industrial.
"Distribution main" means a distribution line that serves as a common source of supply to service lines.
"Distribution system" means any pipeline, meter, metering station, valve, regulator, regulating station and/or delivery station which receives natural gas from a transmission system, gathering line, or other natural gas supply source for service to one or more consumers.
"Distribution" or "Distribution service" means the downstream transportation of natural gas services from the citygate to end-users through a utility's local distribution facilities unbundled from all citygate gas services, but generally bundled with any one or more of the services of billing, metering, customer service and similar services.
"Downstream ( or "merchant" or "retail") service" means any one or more of the citygate(s) service(s) of natural gas supply, gathering, storage or transmission of natural gas marketed downstream by an entity at the retail or merchant level to end-users rather than through the competitive bidding process pursuant to Subchapter 17 of this Chapter, and which entity uses the local distribution facilities of a utility, rather than bypass for ultimate delivery of such downstream or merchant or retail service to the end-user.
"Electronic notification" means any automated communication received by e-mail, phone, text message, or fax.
"End-user" means any consumer receiving natural gas service of any nature.
"FERC" means the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
"Filed" means to present a document and have it accepted by the Court Clerk of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.
"Gas" means manufactured gas, natural gas, other hydrocarbon gas, or any mixture of gases produced, transmitted, distributed or furnished by a utility unless otherwise specifically designated.
"Gas supply source " means gas from the wellhead, any type of storage, processing plant, or other provider of gas.
"Gathering line" means a pipeline that transports gas from a production facility within a gathering system.
"Gathering system" means a pipeline system bringing gas from the wellhead to an aggregation point or transmission line or other gas handling facility.
"Gas utility" means natural gas utility as defined in this Chapter.
"Independent producer" means, for purposes of this Chapter only, any person who produces natural gas and is not engaged in marketing natural gas except for its own account or for other working interest owners in operated wells or who derives a majority of his or her oil or natural gas related income from working interests.
"Interested party" means any individual or entity with appropriate authority to act on behalf of a particular consumer or group of consumers or any other party involved in, or affected by, the provision of natural gas services.
"Intrastate pipeline" means a common carrier transmission pipeline as defined in 52 O.S. § 24 and as applied in this Chapter.
"Legal holiday" means any day declared to be a legal holiday by law or proclamation of the Governor of Oklahoma, or a day on which mail the United States Postal Service does not deliver mail.
"Local distribution company" means the utility distributing natural gas, delivered to its citygate from a transmission pipeline or gathering system, to residential, commercial and industrial end-users over a local geographic area.
"Local distribution facilities" means facilities whose function is the local distribution of natural gas to residential, commercial and industrial consumers and which facilities are characterized by a system of pipes, meters, stations, valves and other equipment for distributing natural gas among consumers within a particular local community or in smaller diameter lines at lower pressures in contrast to movement in larger diameter lines at higher pressures characteristic of transmission, unless otherwise ordered by the Commission.
"Local forecast" means a statement of what the weather is predicted to be, that is issued by the National Weather Service for a specific county, city, and/or zip-code area.
"Meter" means any device that measures the quantity of gas transferred from one party to another.
"Meter shop" means a shop used for the inspection, testing and repair of meters.
"Municipality" means an incorporated city or town in the State of Oklahoma.
"Natural gas services" means any of the services in the natural gas industry, including, but not limited to, local distribution, transmission, gathering, storage, and gas supply, and as specified in Subchapter 17 of this Chapter.
"Natural gas utility" means a natural gas utility as defined in 17 O.S. § 151 et seq., and that includes all utility affiliate assets which the Commission has determined to be included in ratebase.
"NWS" means the National Weather Service.
"P.s.i.a." means pounds per square inch absolute.
"Pipe" means any tubing used in the gathering, transmission or distribution of gas which meets the specifications of the U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S.D.O.T.).
"Premises" means any piece of land or real estate, or any building or other structure or portion thereof, or any facility where gas service is furnished to a consumer.
"Prudency review" means, for purposes of this Chapter, a comprehensive review that examines as fair, just and reasonable, a utility's practices and policies and judgment regarding an investment or expense at the time the investment was made or expense was incurred; including direct or indirect maximization of its positive impacts and mitigation of adverse impact upon its ratepayers, without consideration of its ultimate used and useful nature.
"PUD" means the Public Utility Division of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.
"Public competitive bidding process" means a gas utility process to solicit from all entities offers to provide natural gas services upstream of the citygate as provided in Subchapter 17 of this Chapter.
"Regulator" means a device used to reduce the gas pressure.
"Residence" means any dwelling unit containing kitchen appliances, permanent sewer or septic facilities and water service. A weekend cabin and a mobile home are residences when used as such. An individual room in a hotel or motel is not a residence.
"Request for bid" means a gas utility's request for proposals to provide natural gas services at a Commission approved gas utility's designated citygate or aggregation point.
"Service line" means a line that branches off a distribution main or distribution line in order to transport gas from the common source of supply to utility meters or to a consumer's piping, whichever is farther downstream, or the connection to a consumer's piping if there is no utility meter.
"Shipper" means any person, firm or corporation engaged in the intrastate or interstate transmission of natural gas for third parties.
"Special contract" means a written Commission-approved agreement between a utility and a consumer for the provision of gas service on terms and conditions which are different from those authorized by a tariff.
"Statistical sampling" means a method for drawing elements from a population such that all possible elements in the population have a known and specified probability of being drawn and such that the set of chosen elements has approximately the same distribution of characteristics as the population from which it was drawn.
"Storage" means an underground natural or man-made facility used to store natural gas for extended periods of time.
"Stranded costs" means those prudent and verifiable costs and investments incurred by a natural gas utility, which were "used and useful" to meet the needs of its end-users, including but not limited to, its upstream capacity and supply commitments that cannot be avoided or mitigated or recovered from end-users under an existing tariff which have been caused as a result of the restructuring of the natural gas industry which were incurred prior to February 19, 1997, the date of issuance of Commission Order No. 409563, which closed the Notice of Inquiry, Cause No. PUD 960000133, and which ordered the promulgation of rules to restructure the natural gas service industry, such date being the date the gas utilities were placed on notice of the Commission's intent to restructure natural gas utility service(s). Prior to or during the utilities' stranded cost hearing, this date may be modified by order of the Commission, after notice and hearing. Stranded costs may include prudent and verifiable transition costs.
"Subdivision" means any land, wherever located, whether improved or unimproved, contiguous or not, which is divided into lots or proposed to be divided, for the purpose of disposition pursuant to a common promotional scheme or plan of advertising.
"Submit" means to present a document to the Director of the Public Utility Division.
"Subsidize" means to furnish financial support by the utility to the affiliate.
"Tariff" means every rate schedule, or provision thereof, and all terms, conditions, rules and regulations for furnishing gas service filed with the Commission and approved by the Director of the Public Utility Division.
"Therm" means 100,000 British thermal units of heat.
"Transition costs" means those prudent and verifiable costs and investments incurred by a public gas utility after February 18, 1997, in implementing the Commission's gas utility restructuring rules and to restructure its facilities, contracts and operation. Such costs as determined by the Commission may include education for the public related to the natural gas industry restructuring.
"Transmission or transmission service" means the upstream transportation of natural gas through pipelines and/or other facilities from a well-head, gathering line or other receipt point to a local distribution facilities or an end-user located on the transmission pipeline.
"Transmission pipeline" means a pipeline, either a gas utility owned transmission line or an intrastate pipeline, other than a gathering system that transports gas from a gathering system, interstate pipeline or storage facility to a citygate, aggregation point, storage facility or other delivery point.
"Unbundling" means the identification and separation of natural gas services and/or products and the associated costs to provide each such service and/or product which have been part of the "bundled" complement of services provided by a public gas utility.
"Unbundling plan" means a public utility's proposal(s) to separate its previously bundled services offered upstream of the citygate and to price these services individually.
"Uniform System of Accounts (USOA)" means the system of accounts as currently prescribed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), those accounting systems as published by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) or other accounting methods approved by the Commission.
"Upstream of the Citygate" means all natural gas services provided at the gas utility's citygate or other point of delivery to local distribution facilities which are necessary to serve end-users.
"Upstream related entity" means an affiliate of a gas utility or that portion of a gas utility which provides citygate gas services.
"U.S.D.O.T." means the United States Department of Transportation.
"Utility" means a natural gas utility as defined in this Chapter.
Amended at 13 Ok Reg 3259, eff 7-25-96; Amended at 15 Ok Reg 2177, eff 7-1-98; Amended at 21 Ok Reg 2095, eff 7-1-04; Amended at 26 Ok Reg 1856, eff 6-25-09
