OG&E, a subsidiary of OGE Energy Corp. (NYSE: OGE), is an electric utility regulated by the OCC.

According to the filing, made Sept. 7 by the OCC's Ernest Johnson, public utility division director, “staff brings this application to initiate a proceeding to review the rates, charges, services and service terms of OG&E.”

OGE Energy Chairman, President and CEO Steven E. Moore expressed surprise at the filing. “The Commission has an established procedure for bringing rate reviews,” he said. “It appears as though the public utility division has skipped the important step of conducting a limited financial review and moved ahead with this filing.”

In the filing, the Commission staff requests that OG&E submit information in accordance with OCC standard filing requirements by Jan. 4, 2002, for a test year ending Sept. 30, 2001.

“We've been working to get our company ready for market-based competition for several years now and look forward to demonstrating how OG&E has lowered costs and expenses while improving efficiency and reducing base electric rates by $88 million since1993,” Moore said. “We believe that our rates are appropriate and may very well need to be increased given added generation capacity and distribution system reliability expenditures, and increased operating expenses since our last rate case.”

OG&E is Oklahoma's largest electric utility, serving 700,000 customers in Oklahoma and western Arkansas in a service territory spanning 30,000 square miles. Enogex is a natural gas pipeline and energy marketing company with principal operations in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas.