Atmos Energy has applied to raise its rates in Dallas.
Residential customers could end up paying $6.10 more per month, while the average commercial customer could see an increase of $20.30 per month.
Atmos Energy recently filed a request with the City to increase rates by 6.36% in an effort to boost its revenue. If the City approves the request, it will go into effect on June 1.
City staff will review the request and are scheduled to present recommendations to the City Council on May 10.
Between October 2021 and September 2022, the Dallas-based company spent $180 million to replace certain infrastructure. In total, Atmos Energy claims it has replaced 64 miles of pipe and 3,200 steel service lines in the City of Dallas.
“This investment in system modernization also reduces our environmental impact,” Atmos Energy’s media relations department told The Dallas Express. “Our goal of reducing methane emissions from our distribution system mains and services by 50 percent from 2017 to 2035 is essential to our environmental commitment.”
“We look forward to working with the City of Dallas throughout this process as we do every year,” the company said.
Atmos noted in its request it wants to drive its annual revenue up by $20.6 million to help cover this expense.
“The rates we charge customers — coupled with investor and creditor capital — allow us to enhance the safety and reliability of our natural gas system through pipeline replacement and system modernization,” the company said in its request. “Current rates don’t allow us to recover our additional spending on safety and reliability.”
According to the request, the City Council reviews the rates charged to customers in the City of Dallas.
“In Texas, cities have original jurisdiction over natural gas rates,” it explained. “In order to recover costs after they’ve been spent, natural gas utilities must file directly with the cities for approval to adjust rates.”
“Atmos Energy continues its comprehensive pipe replacement program that prioritizes the replacement of segments based on relative risk by analyzing many factors, including pipe material,” the company continued.
This story comes as rising natural gas prices and cold winter weather are already burdening consumers with higher energy bills.
Moreover, Governor Abbott recently called for the Texas Railroad Commission to investigate Atmos after the company failed to supply hundreds of homes in North Texas with enough gas pressure to stay warm during freezing weather in late December, as The Dallas Express previously reported.
If I own a store and need to spruce it up because it’s old and outdated, I spend my own money and do it. I do not raise my prices and make my customers foot the bill. It’s the cost of doing business. Why does the gas company —who has seen the largest profit margins in its history, feel that the customers should pay for this?
utility infrastructure isn’t a sole proprietorship, dumbass
Natural Gas prices have seen a very large, steep drop in recent months. It has been the big talk among commodity traders.
BACKSTORY – When the Ukraine war started, US NatGas spiked because Europe stopped getting Russian gas. The US ships LNG to Europe, where at the time it was selling for a premium of 10x the price in the US. Biden promised Europe lots of US gas, and US prices shot higher. With warmer weather and FreeportLNG offline, US prices keep going lower. Storage is pretty full already and will be added to in coming months.
You can see the graph of prices here ~~WWW tradingeconomics.com/commodity/natural-gas
INFLATION – I want to point out that infrastructure costs are now much higher due to inflation. Pipelines, materials and labor costs across industries have risen. The entire energy sector has been impacted by these higher costs.
Exactly! Time for ATMOS to pass along some of those savings to consumers. Instead, they are shafting consumers by forcing a rate increase upon them in order to pay for repairs and upkeep to their DFW area infrastructure which they have neglected for decades.
ATMOS has ignored and neglected their infrastructure in the DFW for decades and now instead of investing in the future of their business, they want to shaft the consumer by making them pay for the decades of ATMOS neglect. ATMOS leadership is a group of shameless criminals.
That’s it ATMOS Energy, join the band wagon and just make the customers pay. Greed and neglect is what this is about. We struggle with todays prices and we do not get raises while things keep going up. You want the customers to take care of a dilapidated system that’s been poorly managed and maintained so you just choose to raise rates, selfish and extremely poor timing!
Why should Dallas reject this unwarranted increase? If you check tradingeconomics.com/commodity/natural-gas you will see that the current wholesale price of natural gas is almost the same as it was 25 years ago in 1998. BUT, the price to consumer has risen 400% according to the DFW price per therm to consumer chart at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APUS37A72620 That seems to me as a lot of profit regardless of inflation. I guess I should be investing in Atmos stock to off set my utility bills. That has risen 500% since 1998. Almost 20% a year.