Anticipating another annual gas cost adjustment downward, Intermountain Gas Co. has asked the Idaho Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to drop its retail rates 22.2% for residential customers and 21.6% for commercial customers, effective Oct. 1. The PUC said it will take comments on the proposed net rate decrease through Sept. 9.

An abundance of natural gas supply has enabled the Boise-based MDU Resources utility to buy gas at what the PUC characterized as “favorable” prices. Under the Idaho annual purchased gas cost adjustment (PGA), this is the third decrease that Intermountain has had during the past four years.

The PGA part of customer rates, which accounts for more than half of the retail charges, includes the cost of transporting and storing supplies, as well as the commodity cost of the gas. The proposed decrease is a net amount because in addition to adjusting the so-called weighted adjusted cost of gas, the utility has proposed an increase in transportation charges from Northwest Pipeline Co. that offsets a small decrease in the volumes of gas being shipped in the interstate pipeline.

Intermountain’s rate filing also includes an increase in costs from the utility’s Canadian pipeline suppliers, a decrease in storage costs and a reduction in firm transportation/storage costs due to the utility’s management of its storage and firm capacity rights on its pipeline systems, the PUC said.

For the residential sector, retail rates for customers using both space and water heating will decline from $1.05/th to 80.9 cents/th (April through November) and from $1.02/th to 77.5 cents/th in the winter months (December through March). Of the current $1.05/th charge, about 67.5 cents/th is tied to the PGA costs.

The remaining fixed costs are addressed in general rate cases that happen less frequently than the annual PGA cases dealing with the constantly varying gas costs.

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