Gas rate increases to boost bills 2%
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Quarterly rate changes by Pittsburgh's natural gas utilities that go into effect tomorrow will produce little or no change for their customers.
Peoples Natural Gas Co., Equitable Gas Co. and Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania Inc. all charge customers a gas cost recovery rate, designed to reflect the utilities' cost of procuring gas. They recalculate their gas cost recovery rate every three months to comply with state law that forbids them from either making or losing money on the sale of natural gas.
For each company, its "gas cost recovery" rate includes a charge for the gas itself, plus a charge for delivery and a "gas cost adjustment" that corrects previous over- or undercharges.
Beginning tomorrow, Peoples Natural Gas will charge $5.66 per thousand cubic feet for gas cost recovery, up from $5.49 during the quarter just ending. That includes a commodity charge of $5.05, another 53 cents to cover Peoples' cost for using interstate pipelines to get the gas, and an 8 cent gas cost adjustment charge.
The gas cost adjustment charge makes up for the fact that last year, Peoples underestimated how much the company would pay for gas and charged its customers less than it needed.
Spokesman Joseph Gregorini said that for the average customer, the new rate would increase the monthly bill by about 2 percent, but that the total bill for the November to March heating season would still be lower than last year's.
Equitable Gas customers will pay $7.35 per mcf, the same as the previous quarter. That includes two items that show up on a customer's bill -- a commodity charge of $6.81 per mcf, and a gas cost adjustment charge of 54 cents per mcf. Within the commodity charge is a charge of $5.06 for the gas itself; the remainder is for delivery costs.
First Published December 31, 2010 12:00 am
