Heating costs to rise
Published 12:00 am Saturday, October 4, 2003
ST. PAUL (AP) &045; When winter roars through this year, it’s going to blow a few extra dollars out of Minnesotans’ pocketbooks.
The price of natural gas this month is up between 18 percent and 20 percent from a year ago, according to state and utility company officials.
That translates to bigger heating bills than last year, but the price of gas is still lower than it was in October 2000, a time of record highs for that month. Moreover, the price of gas has dropped about 7 percent since September.
&uot;It’s not the highest we’ve ever seen in October, but it is higher than we’ve seen last year and the year before,&uot; said Vince Chavez, supervisor of the natural gas unit at the Minnesota Department of Commerce.
Xcel Energy and CenterPoint Energy Minnegasco have been warning customers to brace for higher prices.
Xcel has told consumers to expect a gas price hike between 1 percent and 15 percent this winter.
Minnegasco says its average residential customer can expect an annual bill of approximately $980 between this past August and next July, compared with $880 last year.
Gas prices could continue to drop if the winter is mild and the economy remains sluggish. Prices could go higher if U.S. weather gets cold early or the economy heats up demand for gas used to fire electric plants.