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Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit also relies. See Duke
Energy Natural Gas Corp. v. Commissioner, 172 F.3d at 1261-1262.
We reject petitioner’s argument for several reasons.
To begin with, 46.0, although entitled “Pipeline
Transportation”, encompasses “assets used in the private,
commercial, and contract carrying of * * * gas * * * by means of
pipes”. (Emphasis added.) The alleged term of art,
“transportation”, nowhere appears in the descriptive language of
46.0, and it is clear that Clajon’s primary use of its gathering
pipelines is “in * * * carrying * * * gas”.13 Thus, the plain
13 In our discussion to this point, we have not
distinguished between the pipelines, compression stations, and
metering installations constituting what we have termed “the
gathering pipelines”. Although respondent made separate
adjustments with respect to such components, the adjustments were
similar, and the bulk of the adjustments (in excess of 90
percent) were with respect to the pipelines. (Less than 0.5
percent were with respect to the meter runs.) We have had no
need to distinguish among the components since the issue is
whether petitioner is a natural gas producer, not whether the
components of its gathering system are within the meaning of the
term “gathering pipelines” as it is used in 13.2. With respect
to the placement of such components within 46.0, certainly
Clajon’s primary use of its pipelines was in carrying or
transporting gas. Moreover, because the sole function of field
compression is, in the words of petitioner’s expert, “to push the
gas from one location to another through the gathering system”,
the same is true of Clajon’s compressor stations. The so-called
“meter runs” are not separately discussed in either the trial
record or the briefs. However, if they are simply meters used to
ascertain the quantity of gas flowing through the pipelines (the
definition of a “meter” set forth in Williams & Meyers, Manual of
Oil and Gas Terms 626 (11th ed. 2000)), we see no reason to
differentiate them from the pipelines in terms of primary use.
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