Portland, OR-based NW Natural has filed a $43.7 million general rate increase request with Oregon’s Public Utility Commission (PUC), the first such filing in nearly a decade. If approved, the rate change would mean an increase of about 6%, or an average of $5 monthly, for residential customers and $13 monthly for business customers.

The increase comes at a time when the cost of natural gas continue to drop, and the chief regulator in neighboring Washington state in December was touting how retail gas costs in his state and the region were trending downward.

NW Natural said this was its first general rate filing since 2002. The request addresses higher costs associated with maintaining and operating the utility’s pipeline system and serving customers as well as employee pension and other benefit costs. The proposed rate hike would not take effect this winter, a company spokesperson said.

Part of the proposed increase is earmarked for pipeline and system safety in the wake of new federal legislation requiring utilities to enhance pipe integrity management and safety programs.

The other large area covered by the proposed increase involves shrinking the customer service time windows on service appointments. This means hiring more technicians, the utility told the PUC. The utility also is proposing a mechanism to cover the cost of cleaning up old manufactured gas (coal gas) sites that insurance does not cover, and longer term could result in a rate increase of up to 3%, the utility said.

Noting that for nearly 10 years the gas distribution utility has “streamlined” its operations and kept down increased costs to serve customers below inflation levels, NW Natural CEO Gregg Kantor said that because of these historic measures, “even with this rate increase in place customers will be paying less for gas service than they did in 2005.”

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