Winter heating costs rising

Judy Lawson is a retired school teacher who recently did a little gambling - with her natural gas bill. News on 6 reporter Emory Bryan says she locked in a high price, hoping it won't go even higher.

Wednesday, October 12th 2005, 10:50 am

By: News On 6

Judy Lawson is a retired school teacher who recently did a little gambling - with her natural gas bill. News on 6 reporter Emory Bryan says she locked in a high price, hoping it won't go even higher. â€œI'm gambling that heating prices are going up so I'm locking in at a price that begins in November and stays locked in for a year."

That's one of the options for natural gas customers, who are facing prices that could make their bills go up by half this winter.

And for electricity customers, the news isn't much better. The predictions are at least a 35% increase on natural gas bills and 40% on electricity bills, mainly because so much electricity is generated with natural gas. Stan Whiteford with AEP-PSO: "Although we provide electricity as the final product, we use a lot of natural gas and those higher prices are having a big impact on us."

Six of the seven PSO's generating plants burn natural gas. Thatâ€™s going to make the high bills this winter - last into next summer. With the rising cost of natural gas, and now the predicted rise in the cost of electricity, many Oklahomans are caught in a double whammy of higher energy prices.

Don Sherry with Oklahoma Natural Gas: "We just have a situation where natural gas prices are steadily on the increase and that's because of a number of factors including a perceived tightness of supply, the recent hurricanes on the Gulf coast and some prediction of a colder than normal winter, all these things figure into the price factor."

Judy Lawson says she's cutting back and hopes the price won't increase as much as predicted, but she locked in because she's worried it could rise even more.

The deadline for locking in gas rates, with Oklahoma Natural Gas, is October 23rd. It's at a price much higher than currently charged, but lower than what some predict it will reach.

Both AEP-PSO and ONG also offer monthly bill averaging, to offset the rise and fall of energy prices.