WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) – Gas bills 10, 20 or even 25 times higher than normal: this is what some companies and cities are facing. The question becomes what this means for individual customers who have spent the last two extra weeks, who need extra energy to warm up in one of the coldest stretches Kansas has seen in decades.
It is not an extension to say that gas suppliers pay an astronomical amount for natural gas. A unit that sold for about $ 3 less than two weeks ago is selling for over $ 400 today. These figures come from the city of Winfield. Winfield City Manager Taggart Wall said the city budgeted just over $ 1.5 million for natural gas a year. Right now, he’s looking at an invoice for about six days, priced at over $ 10 million.
Wall said the price of natural gas that Winfield buys from the Kansas Municipal Gas Agency has risen.
“An average customer bill will be somewhere in the $ 2,500 range, you know, just for their house,” Wall said.
Because the price increase has occurred so recently, residential customers have not yet received invoices that reflect these prices, but the fear is that they will come.
“It’s definitely not something we see every day. It’s pretty unprecedented right now, and natural gas prices are unregulated, so we don’t have much control that we have, “Linda Berry told the Kansas Corporation (KCC).
KCC regulates tariffs for state utilities. Gas suppliers such as Black Hills Energy, Kansas Gas Service and others have been asked to stop issuing bills to customers until a plan can be reached to ease their impact. What that plan will look like is not yet known.
“Right now, there’s ‘we can’t give you exact numbers,'” Berry said. “I know this causes a lot of anxiety to people when it’s not known, but I just know that KCC and utilities will work together to come up with a plan.”
But this plan will not be of any help to cities like Winfield, as it does not fall under the jurisdiction of the KCC.
“It’s really about our community. We have to survive. That means life or death for companies, “said Wall.
Eyewitness News contacted Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt to see if his office had received complaints about rising natural gas prices.
The Schmidt Bureau issued a statement saying: “The Attorney General is concerned about these shocking price increases. Natural gas regulation is complex, with an exclusively federal authority and jurisdiction left to states. We assess whether the law gives our office a role in this way. ”
Black Hills Energy did not return our requests for comment, and the Kansas Gas Service said it was working with KCC to resolve the situation.
Copyright 2021 KWCH. All rights reserved.