LITTLE ROCK — Customers of natural gas utilities Arkansas Oklahoma Gas and Arkansas Western Gas can expect lower bills this year, the two firms said Friday.
Rates will fall about 5.6 percent at Arkansas Western Gas, a division of SourceGas of Lakewood, Colo., with about 160,000 customers in Arkansas, said Rich Davis, a spokesman for ArkansasWestern.
A customer with a $100 monthly bill last winter would then have a bill of about $94.40 this winter. Arkansas Western’s customers are in Northwest Arkansas, parts of northeast Arkansas and the Arkansas River Valley.
Rates at Arkansas Oklahoma Gas, which has about 45,000 Arkansas customers within 50 miles of Fort Smith, will drop about 2.5 percent this winter, said KimLinam, senior vice president of finance for the firm. An Arkansas Oklahoma customer with a $100 monthly bill last year would pay about $97.50 a month this year.
On Tuesday, CenterPoint Energy, Arkansas’ largest natural gas utility, said its winter rates would drop about 9 percent from last winter. A CenterPoint customer with a $100 monthly bill last winter would have a monthly bill of about $91 this winter.
Houston-based CenterPoint has about 430,000 customers in every area of Arkansas except most of the northwest quadrant.
The rate changes are based on the cost each company pays for natural gas, which has dropped significantly in the past few years. The utilities are required to pass the natural gas prices directly to customers without adding a profit.
Natural gas prices haveaveraged $3.47 per million British thermal units this month, down from an average of $6.77 per million Btu in October 2008, said James Williams, an energy economist who owns WTRG Economics near Russellville. The average price was $3.95 per million Btu last October, Williams said.
Each of the three companies pays different prices for natural gas. CenterPoint paysmore for a cubic foot of natural gas than Arkansas Western or Arkansas Oklahoma Gas pay.
“A lot of it depends on your purchasing practices and your bidding processes,” said Michael Callan, president of Arkansas Oklahoma Gas. “We have a very strict bidding process we use. Some of it is just the luck of the draw. You’re buying a commodity,and you’re estimating based on what you think prices are going to do for the remainder of the winter.”
The long-term forecast for this winter also indicates natural gas customers should have lower bills.
This winter is likely to be warmer and drier than normal, said Brian Smith, a senior forecaster with the National Weather Service in North Little Rock.
Last year was the coldest winter in 10 years, Smith said.
Business, Pages 35 on 10/30/2010