(1) General. To the extent that such supplies are available to the state, assignments from the state set-aside may be made to wholesale purchaser-consumers and end-users located within the state who demonstrate hardship or emergency, or to wholesale purchaser-resellers to enable them to supply such persons. An applicant may be deemed to demonstrate hardship if:

(a) Such applicant is undergoing curtailment of an energy source and must depend on an alternate source of energy for which he has no allocation or an insufficient allocation; or

(b) Said applicant is a wholesale purchaser-reseller and demonstrates:

(i) A need for additional product as a result of supply imbalance; and

(ii) Good faith compliance with fair marketing practices; and

(iii) In cases where long term relief is available through action by the U.S. DOE, that such action has been initiated by the applicant; or

(c) Said applicant is an end-user or wholesale purchaser-consumer who is unable to obtain needed product for his own use from his supplier of record.

(d) Said applicant has an energy conservation program in effect.

[(2)] Priorities and procedures

(a) To the maximum extent practicable the order in which cases will be processed for the month of request will be as follows:

(i) Emergency or severe hardship situations, including space heating requirements of medical and nursing buildings;

(ii) Passenger transportation services;

(iii) Wholesale purchaser-consumer or end-user needing the product, in the opinion of the office, to avoid a serious disruption in their business operations;

(iv) Retail outlets which are experiencing, in the opinion of the office, an unusually low allocation level as compared to their average allocation levels because of such things as road construction, illness, specific market area problems, or other circumstances which prevented normal operations during the base period. Also included in this category are service stations located in discrete market areas or communities which may be experiencing severe supply imbalances as compared to the statewide average. Such imbalances may be due to disproportionate growth, unanticipated demand, or product loss, (e.g., station closures) since the base allocation period. In addition, the office may determine it appropriate to issue set-aside on the basis that an emergency or serious disruption in the market place may occur if such state action is not taken;

(v) All remaining cases representing wholesale purchaser-consumers or end-users;

(vi) All remaining applicants.

(b) If set-aside product is not available to meet all requests within a given category, as listed above in (2)(a), cases within that category will be processed on a first-in, first-out basis. No distinction will be made among cases received prior to the first of the month for which the product is requested. All such cases will be randomly logged in as being received on the first of the month.

(3) Acceptance of product. Applicants receiving a set-aside assignment must notify their supplier of their intent to receive the allocated product no later than 7 days from the date the order was issued, whichever comes sooner. Such notification having been given, the set-aside order is valid irrespective of the fact that the allocated product may not be delivered during the month the assignment was made.