By Mike W. Ray
Southwest Ledger
Summit Utilities Oklahoma has applied to the state Corporation Commission for a $4.9 million base rate increase.
The public comment period will open Nov. 24 and a public hearing on the merits of the proposal is scheduled in Oklahoma City on Dec. 15. SUO customers are to be notified directly by mail or email at least 15 days prior to that hearing, commission records show.
Summit Utilities Oklahoma is a natural-gas supplier for 79 communities in 36 Oklahoma counties; those include 21 cities and towns in southwest Oklahoma. Summit Utilities, based in Little Rock, Ark., acquired the Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texarkana natural gas distribution assets of CenterPoint Energy Resources Corp. in January 2022.
CenterPoint had 99,055 customers in Oklahoma in 2019; five years later, Summit Utilities counted 97,789 customers in 2024.
SUO’s service territory is “mostly rural in nature,” and rural areas “tend to see less development and business growth than metropolitan areas do,” said Keith Thomas, senior director of operations for Summit Utilities Oklahoma and Arkansas Oklahoma Gas Co.
Larger communities served by Summit Utilities include Lawton, Altus, Chickasha, Cushing, Duncan, McAlester, Seminole, Weatherford, plus Vance Air Force Base. Other towns in southwest Oklahoma served by Summit include Apache, Arapaho, Blair, Burns Flat, Cache, Comanche, Duke, Elgin, Fletcher, Geronimo, Mangum, Marlow, Martha, Olustee, Pocasset, Sterling and Temple.
In its application, SUO says the $4,937,453 base rate increase “is necessary to achieve a 7.77% rate of return on investment … which equates to a 10.75% return on equity, which is reasonable.”
If the request is approved by state regulators, the monthly increase in utility bills for the average residential customer would be $2.50; for customers in the general firm sales service class, the average increase would be $2.51; and customers in the commercial firm sales service class would experience an average monthly increase of $15.85, the company reported.
The rate hike would be offset in small part by the company’s return of Excess Deferred Income Tax (EDIT) to its customers “in the form of annual credits each April” – most recently a rebate of $237,479 in a one-time credit to customer bills on April 1, 2025. The EDIT resulted from the 2017 federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
“Primary drivers” of the current rate change request are capital improvement projects, the company said. Last year SUO invested nearly $31 million in its mains and services “to enhance the safety and reliability of its system.”
Cason (cq) Sanders, manager of engineering for Summit Utilities Oklahoma, said SUO has 2,795 miles of distribution pipeline, “not including service lines.” The company has approximately 35 customers per mile of main, Thomas informed the Corporation Commission.
Approximately 15 miles of the distribution system are composed of bare steel pipes, approximately 1,076 miles of line are plastic pipe, and the remaining 1,704 miles of pipeline were manufactured of coated steel, Sanders said.
According to Sanders, 1,228 miles (44%) of the company’s pipelines were installed prior to 1970.
SUO invested $30.9 million last year – 75% of the company’s total capital outlay – on mains and services, Sanders said. Of that amount, $21.56 million (52%) was spent on distribution main line replacements, relocations, and extensions; $9.33 million (23%) were costs incurred in system improvements and compliance with pipeline safety standards, relocation of lines for public improvements, and customer addition projects.
Another capital expenditure in 2024 was a replacement Advanced Leak Detection Picarro surveyor unit “to more accurately pinpoint anomalies on the system,” Thomas said.
SUO previously hired third-party contractors to locate lines, but starting last year line locates “were done exclusively by SUO employees,” Thomas reported.
“Rising contract locating costs in 2023 and 2024, along with other contributing factors, prompted the company to bring locating activities in-house,” he explained. An additional benefit is that employees gain “a better understanding of where the company’s facilities are located.”
As a direct consequence, SUO gathered 59,773 survey-grade GPS data points “accurate to within 1 inch of tolerance” on more than 108 miles of gas lines, Thomas wrote in pre-filed testimony.
Sanders earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from Oklahoma State University in 2013, and a Master of Business Administration degree in 2023 from Southeastern Oklahoma State University. In 2018 was licensed as a Professional Engineer in Oklahoma.
He began his career working for Halliburton Energy Services in 2013, and joined CenterPoint Energy as an engineer in 2016; previously he was the Supervisor of Operations for CenterPoint’s Altus area.
Community service
Since the company serves a largely rural customer base, SUO “engages with the communities it serves” in a variety of ways.
Its employees participate in local chambers of commerce to promote economic development, and SUO allows “team members” up to 20 hours annual of volunteer time off in the communities they serve. Last year, 95 employees recorded 857 hours of volunteer work hours, “which included contributions to a variety of service-area nonprofits,” Thomas said.
Volunteers participated in the United Way of Southwest Oklahoma’s Day of Caring. The company is also “fully committed to combating food insecurity” by providing group volunteers at the Lawton Food Bank and the Chickasha Soup Kitchen, he said.
SUO also offers customer assistance programs such as the Summit Heating Assistance Fund and the Summit Cares Program.
The Heating Assistance Fund, which is underwritten with donations from employees and customers alike, provides eligible customers with up to $200 to pay past-due natural gas bills during the winter months.
In the 2024-25 winter season, the Heating Assistance Fund aided 193 households and provided more than $40,000 in heating assistance, Thomas said. Since the fall of 2022, that fund has provided $62,000 in support to more than 300 Oklahoma past-due customers, he said.
The Summit Cares Program is a grant initiative to support 501(c)(3) non profit organizations that “enhance the well-being of residents” across the company’s service areas in Oklahoma. In 2024, SUO awarded $20,000 in grants to support 11 non-profit organizations in Oklahoma, Thomas said.