RCA extends CPAI ‘10 tariff another year

State regulators have given ConocoPhillips another year to continue collecting increased shipping rates on the trans-Alaska oil pipeline while they prepare for hearings this fall. ConocoPhillips requested the increased rates in 2010 and the Regulatory Commission of Alaska allowed the company to collect them on a refundable basis until Feb. 22, 2011.

ConocoPhillips can now collect the rates through Feb. 22, 2012.

That rate case is now one of 11 consolidated into a single docket, bringing together three years of rate increases from four companies. The RCA and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission are planning joint hearings on the cases that begin in October.

The hearings concern whether and how the cost of Strategic Reconfiguration should be included into shipping rates on the 800-mile pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez.

If all the proposed increases are approved on a permanent basis, it would more than double the cost to ship a barrel of oil from the North Slope to markets within the state.

—Eric Lidji