Homeowners paying nearly 70 percent more for gas heat

By SCOTT BURKE, Staff Writer It just keeps getting worse.

Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. customers are paying almost 70 percent more than they did last winter to heat their homes with natural gas -- nearly a 20 percent jump from the prediction last month.

BGE -- which supplies natural gas to 71,000 of its 199,000 customers in Anne Arundel County -- is charging $1.0029 per therm. That's a 63 percent increase from last year's price of 62.714 cents per therm.

And the weather means customers are using more gas -- pushing the bill for natural gas per home to 69 percent above an average winter, BGE spokesman Rose Kendig said.

"It's because it's been colder than normal and the gas prices have risen," she said.

The Baltimore-Washington area experienced its coldest December since 1989, and its 11th-coldest since the National Weather Service began keeping records in 1871, said John Margraf, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sterling, Va.

Despite the high price of natural gas, however, county customers are still doing better than many people around the nation.

Natural gas customers nationwide will be paying 75 percent more to heat their homes than they did last winter, said John Corgan, spokesman for the Washington-based Energy Information Administration.

He said an average household heating bill will be about $927, up from last winter's bill of only $540.

According to Ms. Kendig, natural gas was a cheap and efficient way to heat homes about five years ago, but since word has caught on about its benefits, demand has overtaken the supply.

BGE anticipated and prepared for this problem, she said.

"We knew this was coming. We forecasted this," said Ms. Kendig.

The company bought more natural gas than needed during the summer when it was cheaper, and stored it until now. As a result, Ms. Kendig said, customers are paying $42 less per month than the current market price.

Ms. Kendig and Mr. Corgan aren't sure when relief will come.

"The single factor right now is the weather," he said. "If we see mild weather for the rest of the winter, then the price may drop slightly."

However, no significant decrease will come before next winter, when the natural gas supply could be replenished.

"They're digging right now (for natural gas)," said Mr. Corgan. "We have had three winters in a row that have been mild. We were sort of lucky ... with production not increasing."

With gas companies increasing natural gas and home heating oil production, the amount of gasoline being refined decreases -- and that could mean higher prices at the pump, said Myra Wieman, spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic in Towson.

"It would reduce the current availability for gas at the pump. It's the whole supply and demand thing," she said.

In the past four weeks, gas prices across the country have dropped 6 cents, from a national average of $1.51 for regular unleaded on Dec. 12 to $1.45 on Friday, Ms. Wieman said.

In Maryland, the price drop was 5 cents, from $1.50 to $1.45.

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), January 15, 2001