Documents show that a week before Oklahoma Natural Gas Company filed for Supreme Court approval of $1.4 billion in ratepayer-backed bonds to pay for February 2021 storm costs, the company also filed a request with the Corporation Commission to raise rates on its customers.
The March 15 application by ONG asked regulators to increase base rates by $19,668,043, a move, which if approved, would increase the monthly bill of an average residential customer by $1.16 or $23.40 a year. In its filing, ONG said the rate hike would affect a residential low-income customer by 51 cents more a month or $6.12 more a year.
The utility explained it had invested nearly $119 million since its last base rate increase. Testimony offered by one ONG representative said that 83% of the additions were for installing, replacing and building vintage pipeline infrastructure for government projects and new meter and service installations for new customers. The rest of the cost was for tools, equipment and software necessary to provide natural gas service.
According to the filings with the Commission, no new hearing dates have been set on the request.