With wholesale gas costs plummeting, Dominion East Ohio Gas said its customers will pay 25% less for natural gas in November, December and January than they paid during the same months a year earlier. Under a gas cost recovery (GCR) decrease filed on Wednesday with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO), Dominion East Ohio sales customers, starting Oct. 26, will pay $5.38/Mcf, down 12.8% from the current $6.17/Mcf and down 25% from the $7.18/Mcf they paid during the third quarter last year.

Including its most recent filing, Dominion East Ohio said it has reduced its GCR by 38.1% since prices peaked at the historically high level of $8.70/Mcf in February. Nationally, an increase in drilling for new gas supplies, coupled with an economic slowdown, has resulted in sharply lower market prices. Dominion’s gas cost reduction will affect 640,000 Dominion East Ohio customers who buy natural gas from the company at rates regulated by the PUCO.

“Our customers have saved $87 million since the [customer choice] program expanded last year, and many have locked in favorable long-term prices that will provide much needed stability during a time when natural gas prices continue to be quite volatile,” said Edgar M. Roach Jr., Dominion East Ohio CEO.

About 550,000 Dominion East Ohio customers, or 46% of its 1.2 million customers, buy gas from competitive suppliers at market-based rates through the Energy Choice program.

“Dominion East Ohio urges its customers to make informed decisions regarding their choice of gas suppliers under Energy Choice and to comply with the terms and conditions of the natural gas contracts into which they enter,” Roach said.

Dominion East said Energy Choice customers, regardless of supplier, would see the unrecovered gas cost portion of their transportation charge fall from 47.5 cents/Mcf to 27.5 cents/Mcf. The unrecovered gas cost portion of the transportation charge reimburses Dominion East Ohio for costs incurred in buying gas for customers before they joined the Energy Choice program.

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