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Home > Blogs > Hamilton News and Issues > Archives > 2008 > May > 12 > Entry
Another natural gas increase coming
I’m spending my day today going through overtime reports for the city for the last two years. It’s a nice way to inch back into the fray having not been in the office since Tuesday.
Though, while I was out last week, the Public Utilities Commission approved another gas rate increase. The city just increased prices effective May 1.
Reporter Rich Wilson had the story in my absence:
HAMILTON - Utility bills will go up next month for natural gas users, and energy costs are likely to keep increasing, city officials said.
The Public Utilities Commission on Thursday, May 8, approved a second rate increase in as many months for natural gas users in the city of Hamilton. At .765 cents per unit, customers will pay about 10 cents more per unit of natural gas in June than the increase that went into effect this month.
That translates to about a 20 percent increase since Jan. 1. A typical natural gas customer in Hamilton can expect to pay an estimated $1,191 a year for the service, up from about $953 at the end of last year, officials said.
“Prices have increased so dramatically and so horrendously, that we’ve had no choice but to pass those costs along to the customers,” said Deputy City Manager Charles Young.
Hamilton still provides the least expensive natural gas in the state, but the rate is likely to keep increasing before dropping or stabilizing, said Doug Childs, utility services manager.
“All energy costs are moving in the same direction,” Childs said. “It’s a difficult time.”
Commodities speculators - which include private investors, insurance companies and other investment entities - may be partly to blame for driving up energy costs, Childs said.
“Supplies are tighter, but not so much to justify these higher prices,” he said.
The city gets its natural gas from two Texas-based companies. But the proposed Rockies Express Pipeline, which will carry natural gas across the country from the Rocky Mountains, could provide a third supply option for Hamilton.
Young said the city has been in negotiations with Rockies Express attorneys to exchange land at the Twin Run Golf Course on Eaton Road for an interconnection with the pipeline.
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Comments
By beer belly
May 13, 2008 12:01 PM | Link to this
is this higher cost for gas used to help don( i will cut your job and close your plant down like i did with western state and hamilton tool and other jobs in hamilton to pay for my new bar) ryan people get you kids and run from this town you will have no heat because donny boy ryan will take your jobs from you by closing down your job .did they tell MOHAWK PAPER about this new gas hike before the news hit the paper . maybe smart paper can sell me my gas to heat my home because like donny boy ryan said we do not need jobs we need more homes in hamilton WOWBy Clinton Frazier
May 17, 2008 9:12 AM | Link to this
with the price of everything going up the city of Hamilton will have to come up with a payment plan to help pay there bill or start shuting people off because they can’t afford to pay the bill,for one I’m getting tired of price of everything going up soon people will not have a job,food to eat,a place to live because they can’t afford it {the country is going to hell}