By Jessie Weisner

City explains high natural gas rates in February

Mar 21, 2019 | 5:20 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — Many Medicine Hat residents were shocked to find their utility bills increased or even doubled for the month of February.

Natural gas prices spiked in February and March, but are expected to go down as summer approaches.

Rochelle Pancoast, general manager of utilities business development and support, says natural gas rates did increase from January to February.

“The January rate for natural gas was in the $1.35 per gigajoule range and the February rate was $2.16,” says Pancoast. “So it was quite a jump month to month on the natural gas energy price.”

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Pancoast says the reason for the price hike was largely the cold weather.

“That really is driven by the broader market,” says Pancoast. “So typically it was the cold weather driving those increases, so increased weather, increased usage, increased demand overall relative to a relatively flat supply.”

During February, temperatures in Medicine Hat sat well below seasonal average, leading more people to turn up the heat in their home.

“With February being quite cold it increased consumption for the average household,” says Pancoast. “So with higher volumes as well as higher cost on the commodity side it probably is quite a price shock with respect to the average bill.”

The rate for natural gas also increased in March, from $2.16 per gigajoule to $3.13.

However, Pancoast says warm temperatures should make the rates more bearable.

“The cold weather has now passed, we would expect consumption generally to go down both on electricity and natural gas, less heating requirements, less lighting requirements in the average home,” says Pancoast. “I would expect to see a softening in those energy prices as well in terms of overall natural gas market and overall electricity market.”

Pancoast says there are energy efficiency options available for residents that want to decrease their usage.

“You can look into our HATSmart program and look at options there as well there is general energy efficiency options where as you reduce your usage your overall costs will go down.”