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WASHINGTON — The Alaska Supreme Court has ruled in favor of state regulators who said owners of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline overcharged for carrying crude oil bound for Alaska refineries.

The Regulatory Commission of Alaska, which is responsible for setting intrastate shipping tariffs, determined in 2002 that rates charged by the owners of the pipeline from 1997 to 2000 were excessive.

The commission said the owners had collected nearly $10 billion in profit on the pipeline in the first 20 years of its operation without passing on savings from the depreciating value of the pipeline to shippers. The pipeline cost $8 billion when it was completed in 1977.

The commission set the rate at $1.96 per barrel and ordered the owners to refund shippers $80 million plus interest.

The owners appealed the decision, arguing that the commission’s method of calculating the tariffs provided an unreasonably low rate of return.

On Friday, the Supreme Court issued a one-sentence ruling reaffirming a lower court’s decision.

The owners voiced disappointment at the Supreme Court’s decision.

“We disagree with the court’s decision, and we are considering our legal options,” BP spokesman Steve Rinehart said. “We believe the pipeline tariffs have been fair, reasonable and comply with our contractual agreements with the state.”

Conoco spokesman Natalie Lowman said the company is reviewing the court’s decision. Exxon did not respond to a request for comment.

The majority of the pipeline is owned by the major North Slope producers. BP owns the largest stake in the pipeline at 47 percent, while ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil own slightly less. Unocal, now owned by Chevron, and Koch combined own about 4 percent of the pipeline.

The big winners in the case are Tesoro and Williams, which filed the original rate challenge with regulators and will finally receive the state-ordered refunds. Tesoro operates a Kenai Peninsula refinery and Williams previously operated the Flint Hills refinery in North Pole. Williams sold Flint Hills in 2004 to Koch.

The state also stands to benefit. State royalties and severance taxes from production on state-owned land are based on the price of oil after shipping charges have been subtracted, so a lower tariff means more money flowing into the state treasury.

The state Department of Revenue said the decision was worth approximately $25 million to the state in refunds for past overcharges.

The ruling does not apply to oil bound for refineries outside Alaska. However, it does have implications for a similar challenge to shipping rates currently pending before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Less than 5 percent of the approximately 720,000 barrels of oil flowing through the pipeline each day is delivered to Alaska refineries. The remainder is placed on tankers and shipped to refineries on the West Coast.

Anadarko Petroleum and Tesoro maintain the charge for shipping a barrel of oil to Valdez for delivery to non-Alaska refineries should be the same as the in-state rate since both barrels have to travel the same distance through the pipeline.

The average interstate rate charged by the owners is more than $5 per barrel.

A FERC administration judge released an opinion in May that supported the argument made by Anadarko and Tesoro. The federal commission has yet to issue a ruling, though.

FERC spokeswoman Celeste Miller said the commission could take up the issue at any time but faces no statutory timeline for making a decision.

The struggle over shipping rates on oil bound for Outside refineries is a much bigger battle with a potential payday worth billions of dollars to the state should the rate be judged inflated, said Nan Thompson with the state Division of Oil and Gas. Thompson was chairwoman of the state regulatory commission in 2002. She said the commission rejected the methodology used by the owners that was established in a 1986 settlement with the state.

The settlement allowed the owners to charge tariffs that covered the cost of operating the pipeline, plus a 6.6 percent profit margin. Following enactment of the agreement, the state complained the owners were gaming the system by inflating their operating costs.

Thompson said the commission rejected the owners’ use of the settlement methodology because it didn’t set rates based on the actual costs of the pipeline.

“The biggest element of all this is the issue of how to depreciate the value of the pipeline as it ages,” Thompson said. “They weren’t giving the shippers credit for money they had collected from depreciation in previous years.”

The owners have argued that higher shipping rates are justified because declining production on the North Slope has resulted in less oil flowing through the pipeline, requiring a higher per-barrel tariff. State officials say the owners are likely to file for an increase to the intrastate rate once this case is settled.

State Revenue Commissioner Patrick Galvin said the Supreme Court’s decision also has implications for the state’s efforts to get a North Slope natural gas pipeline project up and running.

“I think the general reaction is that this is confirmation that the state’s position in regard to the unreasonable control the producers have exercised over [the oil pipeline] is inappropriate and not in the state’s best interest,” Galvin said. “We don’t want to replicate that experience on the gas line.”

The major North Slope producers have said they are the best candidates to build a successful gas pipeline because it’s in their interest to keep costs, and ultimately shipping tariffs, down. Sen. Gene Therriault, R-North Pole, was among the lawmakers Friday who challenged that assumption.

“As owners of the pipeline, they were just paying themselves,” Therriault said.

The lack of incentive to keep costs down on a producer-owned pipeline was one of the reasons he supported a pipeline build by an independent company, Therriault said.