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NM Gas Co. prices to drop a few dollars with new year
A woman struggles to keep her balance as she walks near Eubank and Central in Albuquerque in February 2021. New Mexico Gas Co. customers have been paying a surcharge to offset costs to the company incurred during that storm. The extra charges stop in 2024. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal)
New Mexicans will ring in the new year with lower natural gas prices.
A surcharge New Mexico Gas Co. put in place to recover costs it incurred during a 2021 winter storm ends at the start of 2024.
That’ll take away an average of $5.40 on residential monthly bills, though the price will vary per customer, according to the company.
Storm Uri in February 2021 brought sub-zero wind chills and roaring snow throughout New Mexico as it moved across the state.
It caused the gas company to pay more than $107 million for natural gas in the span of less than a week. That’s roughly equal to the company’s annual gas costs for 2020.
To recover these extraordinary costs, New Mexico Gas Co. got permission from the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission to charge customers slightly more over a 30-month period starting in summer 2021.
The additional cost for residential customers was 28 cents a therm during the summer, when usage is typically lower, and 7 cents a therm during the winter, when usage is higher, gas company spokesperson Tim Korte said.
The higher costs end with the December 2023 billing cycle.
The utility didn’t want to charge the full $107.5 million over a shorter period of time because it would’ve caused New Mexicans’ monthly gas bills to drastically increase.
Winter disasters such as Storm Uri are part of the reason the New Mexico Gas Co. wants to set up a liquefied natural gas storage facility in Rio Rancho, which has been met with some controversy from residents and environmental advocates. The utility says storing gas in the facility will help the company protect customers from future gas price spikes.
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A hearing on the liquefied natural gas facility starts Jan. 8, and the PRC is expected to make a decision on whether to approve it in March 2024.
New Mexico Gas Co. also has an ongoing rate increase request at the PRC, which would raise prices by 11.2% starting in October 2024. The public hearing for that case is in April 2024.
