Columbia gas makes rate adjustments

By Carolyn Shapiro
The Virginian-Pilot
© December 8, 2011

Columbia Gas of Virginia has made several rate adjustments this month, leaving the total monthly bill nearly unchanged for the typical residential customer.

Columbia Gas dropped its fuel-supply charge from about 87 cents per hundred cubic feet, or Ccf, to 82 cents. The new rate applies from December to February.

Virginia gas companies can adjust the fuel rate quarterly to reflect changes in wholesale prices and pass through their fuel costs to customers with no markup. Columbia Gas officials said the new gas-supply rate reflects falling market prices for natural gas over the past two years.

The company altered other charges and credits as of Dec. 1, bringing the total bill to $120.35 for a customer who uses 100 Ccf per month. That's up less than 1 percent from $119.49 for the same customer in November and down about 3 percent from $124.12 in December 2010.

Columbia Gas serves about 65,000 customers in Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Smithfield and Isle of Wight County.

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Columbia Gas drops it's fuel supply charge

Submitted by truthsetsfree on Thu, 12/08/2011 at 9:37 am.

When I saw this story it interested me because I am a Columbia Gas customer. Thank the Lord that something is coming down. Now I received something in the mail some months ago from a company called Columbia Retail Energy. According to their letter, they want to offer me a fixed rate of .65 cents per Ccf-guaranteed through the July 2012 billing cycle with no cancellation fee. Sounds good-What do you think?

Read this offer and your

Submitted by Lucas on Fri, 12/09/2011 at 1:25 pm.

Read this offer and your Columbia bill carefully. The 65-cent fixed rate is only the fuel charge and does not include the other fees which you will still be charged. On the back of your Columbia bill, there is a "price to compare" figure which was 59.5 cents on my last bill. So if you had taken the offer, you would now be paying 5.5 cents per CCF more. I received the same offer a couple of months ago. Then last month they offered .61 cents. If prices increase significantly in the next few months, I may regret not accepting the offer. But for now, I am glad I didn't. (Of course, the difference would only be a few dollars a month but every penny counts.)