Puget Sound Energy seeks to decrease natural gas prices for winter

Puget Sound Business Journal by Kirsten Johnson, Staff Writer

Date: Thursday, September 27, 2012, 4:59pm PDT

Utility provider Puget Sound Energy (PSE) filed a request to state regulators Wednesday to lower natural gas rates beginning Nov. 1.

If the request is approved, PSE said commercial residents would see about an 8 percent drop in their natural gas bill and the average household could expect a 7.1 percent decrease — estimates based on 68 therms of average monthly usage over a 12-month period. The new rates would be comparable to what customers paid in 2009.

Wholesale natural gas prices reached a 10-year low earlier this year due to an abundance of domestic supply. Heating a home with oil is currently three times more costly than with natural gas and electric heating is around 1.5 to 2 times more expensive.

Washington state’s natural gas utilities periodically adjust rates to reflect changes in the price of the natural gas supplies.

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