Retail natural gas rates continued to fall in Washington and Nevada Wednesday and the lowered charges could become effective by Friday. The lucky customers are with Bellevue, WA-based Puget Sound Energy (PSE) and Las Vegas, NV-based Southwest Gas Corp.

State regulators in Washington recently approved a 12.5% drop for the gas customers of PSE, the utility subsidiary of Puget Energy. Southwest Gas and its stakeholders filed a settlement calling for a 14.1% and 4.1% rate drops, in northern and southern Nevada, respectively. The Nevada Public Utilities Commission has called a special meeting to consider approving them on Nov. 1.

Along with two earlier gas rate drops, Puget gas customers will be paying 28% less than a year ago when the rate change goes into effect Friday, the company said in an announcement. Residential customers will see an average decrease of 11.4% from this drop, which applies to all of the company’s 615,000 gas customers in parts of six counties in and around Seattle in northwestern Washington state.

The approval by the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission “marked the third cut in PSE’s natural gas rates this year — each in response to lower-than-anticipated wholesale prices the utility pays to acquire gas for its customers,” said PSE’s Tim Hogan, senior vice president, external affairs. “As fall temperatures drop and gas use goes up, the effects of this rate reduction will be more apparent for our customers.”

In the Nevada retail rate settlement, a statewide decrease of $22 million for Southwest customers is proposed, with a 14.1% drop for northern Nevada customers who had not realized earlier cuts which were given Southwest’s southern Nevada customers last winter. In addition to the utility and the Nevada PUC staff, the state attorney general’s consumer protection bureau, the Sahara hotel/casino and Kerr McGee Chemical signed the agreement.

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