Title 30

SECTION 1206.460

1206.460 What general transportation allowance requirements apply to me

§ 1206.460 What general transportation allowance requirements apply to me? Link to an amendment published at 86 FR 4659, 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 § 1206.461 or § 1206.462, as applicable.

(2) Before you may take any transportation allowance, you must submit a completed page 1 of the Coal Transportation Allowance Report (Form ONRR-4293), under §§ 1206.463 and 1206.464 of this subpart. You may claim a transportation allowance retroactively for a period of not more than three months prior to the first day of the month when ONRR receives your form ONRR-4293.

(3) You may not use a transportation allowance that was in effect before January 1, 2017. You must use the provisions of this subpart to determine your transportation allowance.

(b) You may take a transportation allowance when:

(1) You value coal under § 1206.452 of this part;

(2) You transport the coal from an Indian lease to a sales point that is remote from both the lease and mine; or

(3) You transport the coal from an Indian 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 Indian and non-Indian leases, you may not disproportionately allocate transportation costs to Indian lease production. Your allocation must use the same proportion as the ratio of the tonnage from the Indian lease production to the tonnage from all production.

(2) If you commingle coal produced from more than one Indian lease, you must allocate transportation costs to each Indian lease, as appropriate. Your allocation must use the same proportion as the ratio of the tonnage of each Indian lease's 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 into a dollar-value equivalent.

(g) ONRR may determine your transportation allowance under § 1206.454 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 § 1206.461 or § 1206.462 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.