The majority of residential gas customers interviewed inBrooklyn and Long Island said they want their existing utility as aprovider of choice in a competitive retail market, according tomarket research results presented by a Brooklyn Union (BU)executive yesterday. The findings fly in the face of the New YorkPublic Service Commission’s directive ordering all utilities toexit the merchant natural gas role.

Specifically, two-thirds of 500 residential customers surveyedsaid they favored having a choice of gas providers. Of those, nineout of 10 indicated, however, they wanted their utility as achoice, and eight of 10 were concerned that their utility wouldn’tbe offered as an option. When members of the latter group werepressed further, about 56% said they “definitely” wanted BU astheir choice of provider, said Ron Lukas, general manager of BU,which along with Long Island Lighting is a subsidiary of KeySpanEnergy.

The customer-research results are “diametrically opposed” to thedirective from the New York commission, he noted at a conference onretail gas access sponsored by the Center for Business Intelligencein Washington, DC. And they raise the question “can we actuallypull off exiting the merchant function?” Lukas said the resultswon’t “deter” the utility’s effort to exit the merchant role, but”still [we’re] looking at how to overcome this issue.”

Even if competing suppliers offered 20% savings on overall gasbills, 40% of the customers surveyed said they would choose toremain with the utility, he noted. “Now there’s no way we’re goingto get 20% savings on gas [commodity] alone because gas is onlyhalf the bill.” A 40% savings in natural gas costs would be neededto provide customers an overall benefit of 20%, he said.

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