CLEVELAND, March 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- In April, customers who purchase their natural gas from Dominion East Ohio will begin to purchase their natural gas from an assigned supplier under the company's new Standard Choice Offer (SCO).
Customers who are assigned a supplier will continue to have their natural gas delivered by Dominion East Ohio. Dominion also will continue to read the meter, handle billing, and provide emergency and customer service for all its customers, regardless of their supplier.
All customers who are assigned a supplier will pay the same price for natural gas supplies. That price is set monthly based on national natural gas market prices.
The name of the assigned suppliers will appear on customer bills, beginning April 20.
The customers who will be assigned to an SCO supplier previously received natural gas from Dominion East Ohio under the Standard Service Offer (SSO). In April, Dominion East Ohio will assign these customers to an approved retail gas supplier and identify that supplier on the bill.
The company will continue to offer the SSO for Percentage of Income Payment Plan customers and those who are not eligible to participate in Energy Choice.
Customers who purchase their gas from another supplier in the Energy Choice program or participate in a government aggregation program will continue to receive natural gas under the prices and terms of their respective supplier contracts. Customers assigned to an SCO supplier will be free at any time to enroll with a different Energy Choice supplier or participate in an aggregation program.
All Standard Choice Offer customers will pay the same rate for natural gas, no matter which supplier is assigned to them. As with the SSO, the SCO will change monthly, based on national natural gas market prices.
The SCO and SSO prices will be identical, based on two February 10, 2009, auctions, held under Public Utilities Commission of Ohio supervision. Those auctions determined a Retail Price Adjustment, or adder, of $1.40 per thousand cubic feet (mcf). That adjustment will be added to the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) monthly closing price of $3.631 per mcf, to determine the monthly SCO and SSO. Effective April 20, 2009, the SCO and SSO will both be $5.031 per mcf.
SCO service initially will be provided to fewer than 250,000 customers, or one fifth of the company's 1.2 million customers, who do not already buy natural gas from other suppliers under Energy Choice or municipal aggregation program.
Dominion East Ohio recommends all customers consider their Energy Choice options. Because new offers come out from time to time, customers should continue to review information available at http://www.dominiongaschoice.com/.
In a separate issue, beginning April 14, the company will institute a late payment charge of 1.5 percent. Customers in the company's West Ohio Gas Division service territory previously paid a late payment charge of $0.05 per thousand cubic feet. Under the company's 2008 base rate case settlement with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, all customers will be subject to a 1.5- percent late payment charge on any past-due Dominion East Ohio charges or plan amounts.
Dominion is one of the nation's largest producers and transporters of energy, with a portfolio of approximately 27,000 megawatts of generation, 1.2 trillion cubic feet equivalent of proved natural gas and oil reserves, 14,000 miles of natural gas transmission, gathering and storage pipeline and 6,000 miles of electric transmission lines. Dominion operates the nation's largest natural gas storage facility with 975 billion cubic feet of storage capacity and serves retail energy customers in 12 states. For more information about Dominion, visit the company's site at http://www.dom.com/.
