The purchase of the City of Elk City’s electric distribution facilities by Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO) is now complete, as the signing of the final documents and the transfer of money took place earlier today.
 
"We are extremely grateful to everyone who worked so hard over the last nine months to complete this transaction," said Tiffini Lyda, PSO community affairs manager for western Oklahoma. "We are looking forward to serving our new Elk City customers."
 
The closing of the sale marks the end of a process that began May 29, 2009, when the City issued a Request for Proposals to solicit bids for the sale of its system. On July 2, the City Commission voted to accept PSO’s proposal, which was contingent on completion of a due diligence review and determination of the system’s book value. Consistent with that offer both parties agreed to finalize the transaction at a purchase price for the system assets of $2,365,610.03.
 
With the completion of the sale, PSO acquires 69 customers formerly served by the City of Elk City.
 
Today, Elk City’s meter reader will take the "final reads" for those customers, after which PSO meter technicians will install new electric meters and move those customers to PSO’s billing system. As part of the transition PSO will also make some changes in the physical facilities serving these new PSO customers in coming weeks.
 
PSO already serves about 6,700 customers in Elk City and was first granted a franchise in 1924.
 
PSO, a unit of American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP), is an electric utility company serving approximately 527,000 customers in eastern and southwestern Oklahoma. Based in Tulsa, PSO has 4,405
megawatts of generating capacity, and is the largest provider of wind energy in the state. News releases and other information about PSO can be found on the World Wide Web at www.PSOklahoma.com