Oct. 21, 2006
 
UTILITY RATES: Mountaineer Gas Rates Drop $3.21 Per Mcf on Nov. 1; Rate Case on Allegheny Power Slated to Begin Next February
 
By David M. Kinchen
Editor, Huntington News Network
 
There’s good news in store for customers of Mountaineer Gas this winter, according to Billy Jack Gregg, director of the Consumer Advocate Division of the WV Public Service Commission.
 
In response to a query from HNN, Gregg said: “Mountaineer's rates will go down $3.21 per Mcf on Nov. 1, 2006, from $15.44 per Mcf to $12.23 per Mcf. The rates of former WV Power Gas customers in Hinton will fall even farther, from $15.83 per Mcf to $12.23 per Mcf. (The rates of Mountaineer and WV Power Gas will be the same from November 1 on.).”
 
“A Mountaineer customer using 13 Mcf last winter paid $194 a month, a WV Power Gas customer $199,” Gregg added. “This coming winter they will both pay $165 for the same amount of usage.”
 
Gregg cautioned that people receiving a rate increase notification in the mail from Allegheny Power, which supplies electric power to 492,354 customers in 44 of West Virginia’s 55 counties shouldn’t panic. The utility is seeking an 11.4 percent hike in rates, effective May 23, 2007.
 
“The Allegheny Power rate case will be heard in Charleston beginning on Feb. 12, 2007,” Gregg told HNN. “The final decision is due on May 23, 2007.”
 
Gregg added that the increase won’t necessarily be what the electric utility is seeking. The rate increase is prompted by rising coal costs, just as the decrease in natural gas rates with Mountaineer and most other gas suppliers in West Virginia is spurred by declining gas costs, he added.