Title 30

SECTION 1206.260

1206.260 What general transportation allowance requirements apply to me

§ 1206.260 What general transportation allowance requirements apply to me? Link to an amendment published at 86 FR 4658, Jan. 15, 2021. This amendment was delayed until Apr. 16, 2021, at 86 FR 9289, Feb. 12, 2021.

(a)(1) ONRR will allow a deduction for the reasonable, actual costs to transport coal from the lease to the point off of the lease or mine as determined under § 1206.261 or § 1206.262, as applicable.

(2) You do not need ONRR's approval before reporting a transportation allowance for costs incurred.

(b) You may take a transportation allowance when:

(1) You value coal under § 1206.252 of this part;

(2) You transport the coal from a Federal lease to a sales point, which is remote from both the lease and mine; or

(3) You transport the coal from a Federal lease to a wash plant when that plant is remote from both the lease and mine and, if applicable, from the wash plant to a remote sales point.

(1) Transporting lease production that is not royalty-bearing;

(2) In-mine movement of your coal; or

(3) Costs to move a particular tonnage of production for which you did not incur those costs.

(d) You may only claim a transportation allowance when you sell the coal and pay royalties.

(e) You must allocate transportation allowances to the coal attributed to the lease from which it was extracted.

(1) If you commingle coal produced from Federal and non-Federal leases, you may not disproportionately allocate transportation costs to Federal lease production. Your allocation must use the same proportion as the ratio of the tonnage from the Federal lease production to the tonnage from all production.

(2) If you commingle coal produced from more than one Federal lease, you must allocate transportation costs to each Federal lease, as appropriate. Your allocation must use the same proportion as the ratio of the tonnage of each Federal lease production to the tonnage of all production.

(3) For washed coal, you must allocate the total transportation allowance only to washed products.

(4) For unwashed coal, you may take a transportation allowance for the total coal transported.

(5)(i) You must report your transportation costs on form ONRR-4430 as clean coal short tons sold during the reporting period multiplied by the sum of the per-short-ton cost of transporting the raw tonnage to the wash plant and, if applicable, the per-short-ton cost of transporting the clean coal tons from the wash plant to a remote sales point.

(ii) You must determine the cost per short ton of clean coal transported by dividing the total applicable transportation cost by the number of clean coal tons resulting from washing the raw coal transported.

(f) You must express transportation allowances for coal as a dollar-value equivalent per short ton of coal transported. If you do not base your or your affiliate's payments for transportation under a transportation contract on a dollar-per-unit basis, you must convert whatever consideration that you or your affiliate paid to a dollar-value equivalent.

(g) ONRR may determine your transportation allowance under § 1206.254 because:

(1) There is misconduct by or between the contracting parties;

(2) ONRR determines that the consideration that you or your affiliate paid under an arm's-length transportation contract does not reflect the reasonable cost of the transportation because you breached your duty to market the coal for the mutual benefit of yourself and the lessor by transporting your coal at a cost that is unreasonably high. We may consider a transportation allowance unreasonably high if it is 10 percent higher than the highest reasonable measures of transportation costs, including, but not limited to, transportation allowances reported to ONRR and the cost to transport coal through the same transportation system; or

(3) ONRR cannot determine if you properly calculated a transportation allowance under § 1206.261 or § 1206.262 for any reason, including, but not limited to, your or your affiliate's failure to provide documents that ONRR requests under 30 CFR part 1212, subpart E.