Copyright The Oregonian
Residential customers of Northwest Natural Gas will see their monthly bills increase by 5.4% starting Friday, bringing them to $85.95 on average, according to the Oregon Public Utility Commission. The utility, which serves nearly 700,000 customers in Oregon, requested a rate increase of nearly 7% in December to cover rising costs of equipment and staff, upgrades to information technology, distribution and gas storage systems, seismic upgrades and an increase in its allowable profits. Ratepayer advocates were adamantly opposed to any increase in the company’s allowable profits, saying customers were already struggling to pay their bills and that the requested increase would bring Northwest Natural’s cumulative rate hikes to 50% over the last the five years. In a settlement of the rate case, regulators allowed Northwest Natural to increase total revenues collected from customers by $24.74 million, 58% less than the $59.4 million increase the company originally requested. That agreement bumped customers’ bills by 2.4 percent on average, according to the commission’s order implementing the change. The rest of the increase is due to an annual adjustment in the cost of natural gas purchased by the utility, costs that are trued up by regulators each year, with any savings or surcharge passed through to customers. Commercial customers will see their monthly bills rise by 4.7% annually, while industrial customers will see a 3% increase, on average.
