Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Utah consumers might have to pay $19 million more over the next three years to help Questar offset the cost of processing natural gas so it can burn safely in home water heaters and furnaces.
In an agreement between Questar Gas, the state Committee of Consumer Services and the Division of Public Utilities, Utahns will pay about 50 cents more each month through mid-2008 to help the utility remove deadly carbon dioxide from its natural gas before it is piped to homes along the Wasatch Front.
The Utah Public Service Commission must still approve the deal.
According to the agreement, Questar will be allowed to recover in its rates 90 percent of the actual non-fuel costs associated with processing the natural gas.
It costs Questar roughly $4 million annually in non-fuel costs to process the gas.
In 2003, a Utah Supreme Court decision rejected a $25 million rate increase imposed on Questar's customers in relation to past natural gas processing costs.
Questar fully collected the $25 million over a five-year period that ended in May 2004. But because of the court's decision, the utility in August 2004 began refunding that money, plus $4 million in interest, as a credit on customers' bills.
The new agreement allows Questar to capture ongoing costs associated with the processing plant incurred after Jan. 31, 2005, until 2008, a target year in which Questar Gas hopes enough of its Utah customers will have their furnaces adjusted to burn new composition gas supplies so the plant can be shut down.
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
