October Price Increase

[Beej]

Has anyone heard if the scheduled price increase for October is still going through? It used to be on Questar's site but isn't listed there anymore.

Also, does Questar still have a leg to stand on for their price increases (for home service)? I remember their main point when they submitted their rate increase to the Public Service Commission in July was the increase in the commodity price. At the time nat gas had almost doubled in 6 months, since then it has gone below the price it was a year ago. I've attached a chart of the spot price over the last year.

[Devo]

Re: October Price Increase

I believe that the last price increase was due to the transition of the $82 Alternative Fuels Tax from a flat fee (which some people were not paying at registration time) to a per GGE fee (the state wants "their" money). Can someone confirm/correct?

[Lakewood90712]

Re: October Price Increase

Also, does Questar still have a leg to stand on for their price increases (for home service)? I remember their main point when they submitted their rate increase to the Public Service Commission in July was the increase in the commodity price. At the time nat gas had almost doubled in 6 months, since then it has gone below the price it was a year ago. I've attached a chart of the spot price over the last year.

Spot has almost nothing to do with the rate. The gas utility enters into large purchase contracts several times every year , buying well into the future , like years in most cases. If they guess correctly , great for the ratepayer, if they guess wrong, the ratepayers suffer , sometimes for years.
They ony purchase spot price when they did not buy enough for the heating season. They also sell some on the spot market if they have a surplus , pre-purchased and have to take delivery ,or pay .

[John Mitton]

Alt fuel tax not just yet...

devo,
The 8.5 cent Utah road tax will kick in on January 1st due to HB 106. Until then we all are supposed to pay the annual $85 special fuels permit and get our "c" plates (the plates will be free after January 1st but only applicable to dedicated alt fuel vehicles per Federal regulations and HB 62). Note that the 18 cent federal road tax is already collected, offset by the 50 cent alt fuel credit. Thus Questar gets a net 32 cent credit which they are kind enough to pass on to us at the pump (wish they would instead plow into infrastructure!). This credit sunsets in Sept. of next year.

While we are on the subject, the Questar spoksman said on KSL TV the other night they went from dispensing 100,000 gge to 400,000 gge per month. If they did not pass along the net 32 cent credit they could be plowing $128,000 per month into our station infrastructure. This would be $1.5m per year or approx. two new stations. Wasn't this the intent of Congress?

[Beej]

Re: October Price Increase

Spot has almost nothing to do with the rate.

I don't know about Cali, but it must in UT. Maybe it's different since Questar is a monopoly here and isn't just the utility providing the gas, they are also highly involved in extracting it from the ground. Nearly half of the gas they provide is their own.

In their tariff documents to the Public Service Commission they state that at least every 6 months (sometimes more often) they will apply to the Commission for the "service rate" they can charge customers. This amount is in large part calculated using the spot price over a "test period". Questar even stated the increase in the spot price as a basis for their most recent request. They also said that if prices remained at their current levels (as of July 1) the rates would continue up (adding in phase 2 of their 2 tier plan). (If anyone is interested in the whole 129 page document on the subject you can find it here. It would make for great reading if you're having a hard time falling asleep at night.)

Questar had announced that the pump price would increase in-line with the 2 phase increases they applied for (which was approved by the Commission) which were to take affect July 1 and October 1. The July 1 increase bumped the price to .85/GGE and the Oct was to bump it to 1.05/GGE. This was posted on the NGV section of their site. Now no prices are listed there.

Is anyone "in the know" with how the changes in the spot price may have changed either the position of Questar in their rate increases or the Commission in their view of allowing the rate increases? Will this also affect the scheduled pump price increase? Are they going to implement the 2nd phase? I just want to know what we'll be paying on Wednesday.

[Beej]

Re: October Price Increase

I believe that the last price increase was due to the transition of the $82 Alternative Fuels Tax from a flat fee (which some people were not paying at registration time) to a per GGE fee (the state wants "their" money). Can someone confirm/correct?

John already answered this question but I just wanted to ask about the negative tone Devo.

Utah, like many other states, charges a road tax on gasoline. This money goes directly into road projects. It's one of the most perfect forms of taxation, a use tax. If you use the roads you pay to maintain them when you buy gas. You use the roads more, you buy more gas and pay more tax. I like it.

What people here were doing is registering their GX and telling the DMV that they didn't want the "C" plates because they didn't want to pay an extra $82 with their registration. So they got regular plates and went on their merry way. I almost did the same but I wanted the carpool access. The only problem with this is that now those drivers aren't paying for the road their using.

I think this is the fault of the DMV employees and how they presented the "C" plates, and not drivers trying to get around the system as I've heard speculated. They present them as an option to the driver if they want the benefits of the carpool lane, free parking down town, etc. (at least this is how it was presented to me). The problem is that is only half the story. This is how the state collects revenue for those vehicles that don't use gasoline and pay the road tax that way.

So we now have probably hundreds of vehicles on the road that don't use any gasoline and didn't pay the alt fuel tax. Doing away with the extra fee for the plates and tacking the tax on nat gas is the most fair way to deal with this issue, even if I am double taxed for a few months. Now the state gets, as you put it, "their" money to selfishly improve our roads. (As I understand it, the bi-fuels are also going to lose the "C" plates as part of the change.)

In UT we LOVE our low prices but we also understand that there are things that need to be paid for. I, and many others, echo John's comments about being more than willing to forgo the fed tax credit Questar passes on to us and let them to build up our infrastructure with that money. ANYTHING to keep CE out of our state.

[Highmarker]

Re: October Price Increase

It is a catch 22 for Questar. They are claiming the 50 cent federal tax credit, but they can't charge the customer more than the PSC will allow them. I don't know how it started in the first place. Did the PSC rule that they had pass the 32 cent savings onto the consumer? Obvisously something was done about the 18 cent federal road tax, why can't something be done about the 32 cents left over?

[Beej]

Re: October Price Increase

I just called Questar customer service who said that they don't know what the price will be, if there would be an increase on Wednesday or not. She said that they were waiting to see what the market does before making that decision so we may not know until Weds if there is an increase or not.

[Yroc]

Re: October Price Increase

No increase, I guess that's good news?