That’s good. It was something easy to deal with, and you didn’t get a humongous rate increase.
Sadly, we’re still going with the monkeynut whack assumption. Not fun.
I misread that to say you had a bad reading. Oops.
HANK HILL: The virtues of propane . . .
Sorry don’t have a Platts subscription, but EIA has daily and weekly futures prices here for Henry Hub.
Futures price for Henry Hub is here, contract one is one month delivery, contract 2 is two month delivery , same for 3 and 4.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_fut_s1_d.htm
From Jan we to June there has been a steady increase from $8/mmbtu to $13/mmbtu, so that price alone could explain a big chunk of your gas bill rise.
It should be noted the 4 month contract is marginally higher than the one month contract, which would tend to indicate people are expecting prices to continue to rise.
disclaimer - I am not a gas trader, I am not your gas trader, the above does not constitute gas trading advice, any similarity to fact is purely coincidental in a blind monkey hitting a stopped clock twice a day type way, I just drill holes in the ground.
If you want to be really concerned about energy costs, here’sa look at the settlement prices for natural gas for the last several years. After staying fairly steady in the $6-$7 / MMBtu range for 2007, the price has been rocketing up at a rate of about $1 per month this year. At the $13.11 closing price for July, we’re nearing the historical highs in the upper $13 range set in the months after Katrina hit.
Darth, most power companies post their rate schedules online. If you can give me a link to one, I’d be glad to try to assist in translating it if you need help. As a start, check out the number of days between readings that they have on your bill. Also, take a look at the reading they have on the bill, and go take a look at your meter to see if it looks like there could have been a mis-read.
Una would be the person to consult on coal prices, but I do know that my major local power supplier has just requested a 13.63% rate increase based on the increased price of fuel, so presumably this in reaction to increased coal prices. (Where I live, 60% of electricity is generated from coal, and 30% from nuclear.)
Missed the editing deadline ---- sorry, I didn’t read all the responses as closely as I should have before posting. My NYMEX prices were somewhat a duplicate of the ones NaturalBlondChap posted, but I find the format a bit more readable.
Also, Una had pointed out that your local generation was more likely to be from gas than coal. If so, that would be a strong reason for a price increase. However, if that were the case, I’d expect you’d be hearing stories about major rate increases in the local news.
I’m actually somewhat limited in what I can say about Texas coal prices, as I’ve been retained as an expert witness in a dispute between a large utility and a railroad. However, in general I do not believe that delivered coal prices in Texas this year are significantly different than last year (and in the case of coal, there still is a very large amount of it under long-term fixed contract, which reduces price volatility.)
YWalker, I’m very surprised that they would request a nearly 14% price increase and blame coal. AFAIK the delivered price of coal is expected to decrease to several NC plants due to scrubbers coming online allowing leveraging of high-sulfur NAPP and IB assets. Also, the transportation snarl on the East has largely let up, and Colombian prices to the eastern seaboard are becoming competitive again…long story short, I haven’t checked in a bit, but I would be very surprised and would really wonder about any increase in coal prices in your area greater than 1-2%.
Very interesting.
Here is the a portion of the press release announcing the request for increase, though:
Our power rates nearly doubled recently – it was supposed to happen a year ago, but the legislature forced the power companies to wait a year. Gee, thanks. So we had a year to know we were going to get screwed. :smack:
Unfortunately, our house is easy to air condition but hard to heat. (Long story, due to the way it’s constructed, don’t ask.) I spend most of the winter wrapped in an electric blanket to keep the heat bill down. At least I can AC to my heart’s content and know our summer bills will only be half those of winter.
Now if only our landlord would let us put in a dog door…seriously, that would save us a bundle. But as renters, we don’t have a lot of say in it, unfortunately.
Progress said that? Oh…wow…OK. Not that I could post anything here, but I think I’ll call a couple of their plant managers I know on Monday and ask what’s up.