Oct. 24, 2007
UG-071780, UG-071864 & UG- 071950

OLYMPIA, Wash. – Customers of three Northwest natural-gas utilities will see a decrease in their winter heating bills beginning Nov. 1.

The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) approved the three utilities requests to reduce rates today in response to lower wholesale natural gas prices. The three companies adjust rates each year to reflect the change in wholesale costs of natural-gas and pass the additional increase of savings on to customers.

“I’m happy right now that natural gas customers will get a break on their heating bills this winter,” said Commissioner Philip Jones. “I wish we could guarantee that wholesale gas prices will stay low in the future, but that’s not likely given increased global demand and price volatility in the natural gas market.”

Natural-gas companies in Washington are not allowed to earn a profit on gas commodity increases. The decrease is the first for each of the three utilities in five years.

The average Cascade Natural Gas residential customer’s monthly bill will go down 17.6 percent, or about $13.01 for using 59 therms. For a typical Avista household, rates are expected to drop by 6 percent, or $5.32 a month for a customer using 70 therms. A normal Northwest Natural residential customer will see about a 9 percent lower rate, resulting in a reduction of $8.22 a month for using 63 therms.

There are four natural-gas distribution companies operating in Washington. The commission previously approved Puget Sound Energy’s 13 percent residential rate reduction beginning Oct. 1.

Seattle-based Cascade Natural Gas Co. serves 182,804 residential and business customers in 65 communities throughout the state, including Bellingham, Bremerton, Mount Vernon, Aberdeen, Longview, Moses Lake, Kennewick, Walla Walla, Wenatchee and Yakima.

Avista, formerly known as Washington Water Power, is headquartered in Spokane and provides natural-gas service to about 141,000 customers in 10 Eastern Washington counties: Adams, Asotin, Franklin, Klickitat, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, Skamania, Spokane, Stevens and Whitman.

Northwest Natural Gas Co., based in Portland, Ore., has about 65,000 customers in Clark, Skamania and Klickitat counties.

The three-member commission is the state agency in charge of regulating the private, investor-owned natural-gas utilities in Washington. It is the commission’s responsibility to ensure regulated companies provide safe and reliable service to customers at reasonable rates, while allowing them the opportunity to earn a fair profit.