Energy officials and utilities in California are looking at continued low retail natural gas prices going into and perhaps through the winter, according to state officials, and the current projections of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. How low the prices may be is not projected, but everyone seems confident that there will be no repeat of last winter’s record price spikes amidst the state’s supply and creditworthiness crises.

“Consumers for this winter will not see the big gas bills that they saw last year,” a spokesperson for the California Energy Commission told news media this past weekend. “This year is more typical.”

A PG&E gas utility spokesperson said the utility expects natural gas prices to continue to “trend back to normal (five-year average) levels.” The utility foresees more stabilized wholesale prices throughout the winter, and no chance for the market to get “out of control” as it began to do last year at this time, the San Francisco-based spokesperson said.

A year ago, PG&E’s average retail gas customer paid $66 in November; this year the projection is for an average gas bill around $43 — 35% decrease, year-to-year, according to the utility forecast. For the rest of the winter months through April, PG&E expects average monthly retail bills to be “far lower” than the same period last winter, when the average bills were in the $90 to $120/month range for January through March.

Abundant supplies and a weaker economy have added up to much more plentiful supplies in storage, PG&E and its counterpart in the south, Southern California Gas Co., have reported.

©Copyright 2001 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.