The average residential bill for Peoples Natural Gas customers is expected to rise starting Monday.
Projections for the future cost of natural gas and an increase in base rate prices prompted the change, company officials said Friday.
Currently, the average residential bill is about $63.43, said Joe Gregorini, Peoples Natural Gas vice president of rates and regulatory affairs. That number will jump to an average bill of $72.51 starting on Monday, Gregorini said.
"That's about a 14 percent increase related to those two changes," Gregorini said.
Officials noted the quarterly gas cost changes are not a series of mark-ups on the price of fuel. The company needs to recover incurred costs on the price of natural gas, Gregorini said.
The increase comes as the cost of fuel is projected to rise over the next 12-month period, Gregorini said.
"They are up slightly from where we are today," he said. "It's a reflection of that forward price projection."
The base rate increases were implemented to recover the costs of doing business, said Barry Kukovich, Peoples Natural Gas spokesman.
Replacement work on pipelines, delivery rates and other projects factored into the base rate increase, Kukovich said.
