Utility Bill Shock?

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SlugSlinger

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Severe Winter Weather Update
We’ve received many questions asking about rates increasing next month and the impact higher natural gas prices could have on your bill. There’s a lot of misinformation circulating out there, so we would like to provide you with the facts and with what we know at this time.

Below, we’ve gathered the five most commonly asked questions and did our best to answer them. We know this doesn’t answer everything, but we hope it will give you some assurance on our commitment to keep you informed as the situation develops.

Do I have to continue to conserve or are things back to normal?
Residential customers can return to normal natural gas usage. We want to thank you for your conservation efforts. Your efforts helped us avoid widespread outages during the extreme weather event.

Will my bill be higher?
Your bill may be higher based on the amount of gas you used during the historic cold temperatures.

Your monthly bill is a combination of the amount of gas you use and the cost of gas. The extreme weather caused many customers to use more gas for heating their homes than they may have in prior years. The higher amount of gas used will be reflected on your bill, regardless of the price of gas. While we do not markup the price of natural gas, these events will have an impact on customer bills. If you conserved energy during the weather event, your bill will most likely be lower than it would have been otherwise.

How much will my bill increase?
Honestly, it’s too early to tell. At this time, we can’t quantify what the impact on customer bills will be. We experienced much higher natural gas demand which resulted in a significant increase in natural gas market prices on a portion of the supply we purchased during this period.

What are you doing to help reduce the impact to customer bills?
Unlike some other utilities, Oklahoma Natural Gas has the ability to work with our regulators to spread these high gas costs out over several months.

We have filed a request with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission that would defer extraordinary gas and other related costs associated with the recent extreme winter weather event over a reasonable period of time to prevent those gas costs from hitting customer bills all at once.

If you have concerns when you get your bill, we will work with you to help find options for payment. There are a number of payment options and resources that we offer customers, and we will commit to doing what we can to help you.

What can I do to minimize the impact to my bill?
One important thing you can do right now to minimize the amount of your bill is to follow the conservation tips that we’ve been communicating throughout this extreme winter event. Following the tips we list in this infographic can help you conserve in a number of different places around your home.

While these answers may not provide you with the level of details you’re looking for right now, you should know that payment options will be available.

Our Average Payment Plan helps reduce the fluctuations of your monthly gas bill and makes budgeting easier. The Average Payment Plan is based on a 12-month rolling average of your natural gas bill and is a way to reduce the volatility of seasonal energy expenses by spreading out the cost throughout the year.

You can enroll by logging into your account. If you don’t already have online account access, you can sign up today. It’s quick, easy and let’s you manage your account without having to call us.

We also partner with financial assistance agencies throughout the communities we serve that manage funds for eligible customers that need help paying their utility bills. Visit oklahomanaturalgas.com/cares for more details.

As we get more information, we will communicate it to you and post to our website and social media channels.

Thank you again for everything you did to help conserve during the extreme weather event. You played a big part in helping us avoid any widespread gas outages
 

dennishoddy

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It’s quite a drama. Lots of officials scrambling to deflect the blame or obscure the shortcomings of their planning. When the news reports cite the ridiculous prices paid for energy during the scramble to keep the Texas grid functioning, I could not help but recall Enron and the fact that it was a Texas company.

I’m reading speculation that the Left might somehow have set Texas up for this fall. It seems half way plausible: dangle money in front of powerful individuals to invest in the wrong sorts of power systems that would inevitably fail when a strong enough cold snap occurred. More likely it was just short term thinking and greed for quick profits.
Lots of blame going back and forth among the feds, politicians, and the regulating agencies.
The truth is that the grid that Tx set up was not ready nor prepared for severe cold weather. That is the bottom line. If they don't upgrade to freeze proof control systems, the same thing will happen again if another weather event occurs.
 

dennishoddy

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This ^^^^^Texas is not, our bills will go up for more usage.
Part of Tx is regulated, part of it is not. The homeowner has the choice when signing up for utility services. Just like back in the day when we had variable or fixed interest rates when buying a home.
Those that chose to use the variable rate are the only ones getting monster bills. Those that chose the regulated utility's are getting normal billing.
I have family in Tx and they are not on the variable rate. Their bills are normal usage.
 

chadh2o

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OGE bill came today. Through 2/16/21, $234.55.
Total electric, 1-5 ton heat pump with strips, 1-2.5 ton strips only (upstairs), 60 gallon water heater. Ran the water at a good stream, hot & cold, in one faucet. More concerned with Norman water bill.
 

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