Fuel Prices in Baltimore Area

rick in Alaska

I'm in Homer Alaska which is 220 miles s.e. of Anchorage. I just called for prices for #1 heating oil and propane so I can give my customers a little insight as to the true cost of "gas". Currently, oil is at $2.60 a gallon, propane is $2.50, and electricity is about 11 cents per kwh. Not nearly as bad as Bethel, but you can drive to here. Still, oil prices are typically around 20 to 30 cents cheaper in Anchorage. Seems like a lot of difference to ship it another 220 miles. Supply and demand stinks sometimes.
Rick in Alaska

Steamhead

With all the discussion regarding oil vs. gas

I thought I'd run the numbers and see how they stacked up. Note that these prices will probably change very quickly, but this can be considered a "snapshot" of the Baltimore market as of today. All numbers are rounded to the nearest cent.

For gas, I looked at my bill. For those of you who aren't familiar, a "therm" of gas contains 100,000 BTU. Based on a consumption of 17 therms, and after all the many charges and taxes were figured in, I came up with $1.83 per 100,000 BTU. Note that one of these charges- the so-called "Customer Charge"- doesn't change with the number of therms used.

A gallon of oil contains 140,000 BTU and the price per gallon usually includes all taxes, etc. One company here whose prices can be considered "average" is currently selling oil at $2.35 per gallon, which is $1.68 per 100,000 BTU. If oil is $2.50 per gallon, it would equate to $1.79 per 100,000 BTU. $2.55 per gallon would bring it to $1.82 per 100,000 BTU, about equal to the price of gas. At $2.65 per gallon we're up to $1.89 per 100,000 BTU, and at $2.75 it rises to $1.96 per 100,000 BTU.

I'm sure we'll see oil going up to at least $2.50 per gallon by the end of the year. But even at that price, it's still cheaper per BTU than gas at its current level in this area- and gas can be expected to rise too. And it goes without saying that one's equipment must be capable of efficiently transferring BTUs from the flame to the rooms.

Has anyone out there run the numbers for your area?

Jason_15

Fuel prices

I will post the exact numbers tomorrow for Milwaukee, Wi. My July bill charged me about 97 cents for a therm of natural gas, including taxes, etc. I'm not sure about #2 oil today, but I believe it's around $1.90 per gallon. I'll find out tonight.

Mike T., Swampeast MO

Can't compare natural gas to fuel oil here as fuel oil is not used residentially.

LP, natural gas and electric are the options. LP is generally only used in rural areas where natural gas is unavailable. While I don't know exact costs of LP, I do know that even with more than doubling of natural gas in the past 3-4 years, it's still significantly more expensive.

Electric vs natural gas (in this area using current rates).

Natural gas is $1.1753 per them (100,000 btu).

Winter electric is 5.5¢ per kilowatt hour. It takes 29.307 kilowatt hours to get 100,000 btus, so cost per them of electricity is $1.61

If you assume 80% efficiency for a typical natural gas boiler you actually have to consume 125,000 btus to get one therm of energy available for space heating. So, when compared with electricity at 100% efficiency the natural gas now costs $1.47 per usable therm compared to $1.61 for electricity.

Factor in "typical" boiler oversizing, the pilot light and the fact that most residential boilers in this area are VERY old, and electric resistance heat actually becomes cost effective.

Because we get much of our power from the TVA and because generation capacity comes from the summertime cooling requirements (VERY large), I honestly expect that electricity will become less expensive than all but the most efficient--say condensing/modulating--boilers in the very near future.

I know a number of people who live in small homes or apartments with old, oversized and inefficient natural gas, forced air central heating systems. Two heating seasons ago their gas bills went through the roof. Last heating season many started using portable electric heaters (often the "radiator" variety) and significantly reduced their heating costs!

Dale

17 therms

I wonder if your oil to gas is an apples to oranges comparison if done in the summer. You may want to run the numbers again for 150 therms a typical winter amt. and only change the variable cost. One therm or 1000 the fixed costs portion are the same. At only 17 therms all the fixed costs make the per therm rate much higher than it would be in the winter when the real money was at stake. I too use about 17 therms a month in the summer and thats for hot water and clothes drying, but I find the total cost per therm much lower in the winter.

Steamhead

The only fixed cost in my calc

was the customer charge. Everything else was based on consumption. I heat with oil, so I'd have to check with a neighbor during the winter to see what rate they're paying to heat with gas. But I did notice that the "summer electric rates" were in effect, however there was no such notation for the gas.

Mike, does your cost per therm include taxes and other fees?

Jason_15

Re: fuel prices

I just called a local oil co. they are at $1.92/ gallon. LP gas is at $1.63/ gallon. Our electricity is at 10 cents/kilowatt and due to increase again as we are getting a new coal plant (yuck, nasty) next year. Wow, Mike- you are lucky to have TVA supplying you! electric heat here is very cost prohibitive. NG is by far the cheapest (for now) though it has been this way for a long time here.

Mike T., Swampeast MO

No--did not include taxes or monthly minimum surcharge.

Gas and electric come from same company (Ameren-UE). MO state sales tax on utilities is 2%; city "municipal charge" on utilities is 5.26%.

Minimum surcharge (in addition to usage) is $15/month and $5/month for electric. (These might have changed--not sure.)

Actually, our natural gas rate here is the highest for all Ameren-UE customers in the state of Missouri. Also the highest I've found throughout the state and also in the section of the country that has long been served by natural gas. HUGE natural gas pipeline that leads to the upper midwest and Canada is just a few miles away.

Dale

Interesting

In my state there is a fixed customer charge for meter reading, bookkeeping, cost of the meter ect. There are also fixed charges paid to the feds for pipeline access. there is also a distribution charge which goes up with gas volume. The actual cost of the gas bought from the pipeline is a pass through, we make no profit on it. Our gas buyers are usually the best in Wisc. so the amt. paid for just the gas is as cheap as we can get it out of the Joliet hub.The average cost of the gas is a hugely complex math formula as the gas buyers play lots of markets like the NY mercantile exchange and use complex derivatives to figure out how much gas to buy and store in the summer to smooth out the winter charge. The problem with electric heat is the lack of enough transmission lines, and the gas used to make it.

Steamhead (in transit)

Update

Gas is at $2.02 per therm in Baltimore now. Oil would have to exceed $2.85/gallon to become more expensive than gas.

Joe Brix

with all the talk

of heating oil shortages and the fed having to release the heating oil stockpile, I can easily see #2 crossing over $3/gal durring the peak of winter. I don't think the gas companies can raise their rates that fast but they're in for the same problems will all the talk of production still off-line. News says that everything will take 6 months to get back to where it was. Funny, that just ties in with the end of the heating season.

Bob W._3

Frank, we were paying $0.60 to $0.80 per therm just a few years ago. Gas had always been cheap in the Midwest until it spiked one winter about 5 years ago. Since then it has been steadily rising (the investors have to make money you know). We are paying about $1.00 per therm now +/-, including delivery charge. In the warm months the price is a little higher due to the$6.50 base residential charge. My bill for the month ending 9/6/2005, for 33 therms (@ .96486) was $40.83. I think you folks out East are paying high prices in part because part of your gas infrastructure is so new. As I understand it gas wasn't available in large parts of the NE U.S. until recently. Residential fuel oil has almost gone the way of the buffalo in these parts.

Constantin

Gas isn't new...

... in fact, the NE is one of the areas where 'city gas' was pioneered. My current renovation project had all the latest trappings of convenience when it was built in 1872, including city gas for the lighting and coal stoves or fireplaces in every room. Unfortunately, indoor plumbing was still a bit newfangled back then, so that got added on (brutally) at a later point.

No, gas is very expensive up here because all the operators that get it to the NE have to be paid. For example, I have been told that a large portion of the pipeline gas in the NE comes from the east Texas panhandle, some leftover PA wells, and the Canadian maritime provinces. Meanwhile, the LNG is coming from Algeria and Trinidad... That's a lot of transportation distance to cover, facilities to maintain, shareholders to pay, etc.

In fact, gas demand was so cyclical that the local utilities found it more cost efficient to liquify pipeline gas in huge LNG tanks around Boston rather than to build enough pipeline capacity from the South to cover peak winter demand. The tanks are filled over the summer, and a lot of energy is used to compress the gas while demand is low. Trouble is, not only is the local utility too efficient at converting oil users to gas, the electrical generation peaker turbines used in the summertime are using a lot of the gas earmarked for LNG storage.

Hence, it may not be surprising that the most recent gas bill I remember had a $1.05/therm distribution charge and a $0.45/therm gas charge. Thus, 2/3 of my bill has nothing to do with the gas but to get it to my current home. Plus, it also means that the price of gas will never go below $1.05/therm in this area and that any increases in raw materials costs have a smaller effect on the percentage increase in total cost of the gas than in other regions where the transportation charges are lower.

Part of the problem up here is the age of the infrastructure, which is ancient. There are very few high-pressure lines in and around Boston, which means that it's more cost efficient for utilities to transfer gas to each other using LNG tanker trucks (and a lot of them) than to use a pipeline to transfer the gas directly to where it is needed. With the current hysteria regarding LNG terminals, this issue isn't going to get better either.

Bob W._3

doesn't sound good. Even if our gas goes to $1.31, I am looking at a monthly bill of $881 for a 632 CCF month, and that is with the unusually warm winters we have been having lately. Yikes!

Dale

Madison WI

The cheapest fuel here currently per therm is propane. Strange but true. The propane supply chain is not the same as oil or nat gas.

Jon_10

Northern NY natural Gas Price

We are currently paying $1.49 per therm, we are located on the US/Canadian border. 14.7 cents/kwh for electric.

Wayco Wayne_2

Last Month

in Gaithersburg, MD just North of DC we were charged 1.74 after adding up all the charges. Of course the charge for gas was listed at .96 per therm, but then I added all of the little transportation, fees County proccess fee, etc. per therm and I ended up at 1.74. Electricity is still at .07 per KW. I am telling all my customers replacing furnaces and A/C to go Heat pump and dual fuel. My cost compare software sez I could save 500 dollars a year switching from A/C to high efficiency HP. WW

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Steamhead (in transit)

Electricity will go up

you just haven't seen it go yet.

What type of dual-fuel have you been using? Oil/gas? Wood? Coal?

Bob W._3

Heat pumps don't want to work in our climate in winter - Minnesota. Strange weather tonight. Storming, hot, humid, big front coming through. Snow in the Dakotas heading east. Remnants of Hurricane Otis, I guess.

Constantin

Good Point

The Globe had an interesting article today. They looked at the different generation and heating fuels in the region.

In home heating from 1990 to 2003, NG fed usage surged from 38% to 44.1%, with oil declining from 44% of home heating to 38.3%. Meanwhile, electrical generation capacity has also changed from 1980 to 2004, with NG rising from 1% to 29% and oil dropping from 56% to 4%. Interestingly, dual fuel generation capacity rose from 0% to 12% in the same time frame.

In other words, the N.E. has become increasingly dependent on natural gas for everything from heating to electricity. Allegedly, some long-term contracts are shielding customers from some of the recent raw material price increases but they too will expire some day. Looks like oil is still a sensible fuel choice in this region.

Christian Egli

One sweater, one therm

From yesterday's natural gas bill

Privilege of having a gas meter: $25 per month ($300 per year) increased from $5.40 a few months ago. There is a shortage of gas meters, you know!

Cost per therm, broken down in two items that come up to: $1.86 per 100,000 BTU unit.

Cost to me for a summer bill of only 2 CCF used: $14.23 per therm

Natural gas. Priceless.

joel_19

oil

oil is the way to go in new england electric rates are sky high and heatpumps are a joke everybody hates them we rip them out . My customers told me they got hit with a 35% increase last month with 28% more projected for next month for natural gas . We are WAY to NG dependent up here I wish the NG utility would stop trying to switch people over . Two winters ago we had lots of problems very cold out . The NG couldn't keep we had boilers going out all over the place . We measured zippo for pressure in the lines . if we have a bad cold snap it will be even worse this year as they have created more demand by switching people . It's absolutly nuts if you can't supply them why switch them ? guess cause it looks good to the Wall Street boys.

Tundra

Bethel, Alaska

Heating Oil $3.76/ gal. 125,000 - 130,000 BTU's per gallon.
gel point -70*F to -80*F. Electricity .32/kwH. One tank farm, buy it from them or bring in your own barge.
Unleaded $3.77/gal. at the cheap place.

Bob W._3

The gas suppliers out East sound like they don't have their act together. Here, the NG company has always been considered rock solid, like our old electric company before all the mergers. Now, who knows?

JeffD

Here in Maine #2 is running $2.54/gal. Electric $0.13/kwh. Wood and wood pellets are starting to become the fuel of choice again. Of course the gas and oil companies are lobbying for legislation to clean up the air by eliminating wood burning, even though new stoves are 90% cleaner than they were prior to 1990, the oil and gas companies claim that wood is 10-20 times dirtier than oil or gas. Hmmm, wonder how all this is gonna play out.

Constantin

Well, I didn't think it was possible...

... but you're making Keyspan, NSTAR, and all the other utility companies here look good. :-)

Is energy that expensive throughout Alaska or are the energy prices in Bethel explained by the monopoly/small market micro-climate?

Constantin

Where are you located?

If the gas meter is that expensive around here, I may consider switching to LP even though I live in the city. We only have cooking and the dryer to take care of, so my per-therm costs could be sky high when base costs are that high also.

Constantin

I think it depends also..

... on the quality of the regulators/politicians that set the rules for utilities.

For example, much of the CA energy crisis was brought on by the prohibition for energy-distributors to sign long-term supply contracts. Instead, they had to buy on the spot market, which then encouraged the market (with the likes of Enron leading the charge) to bleed them dry. Subsequently, PG&E, etc. went bankrupt, the rates in CA skyrocketed, etc.

When I was in England this summer, I found it amusing that British Gas advertises on billboards that their natural gas prices are locked in until 2006.

From my reading of an article in the Boston Globe, the local natural gas prices are an mixture of long-term contracts and spot purchases. The long-term contracts are re-negotiated in a revolving manner, giving the utility some security, and the time to request rate hikes before the more expensive natural gas hits the market.

hr

No burn days

were common, in Missoula, when I lived in Montana, 20 years ago! I suspect those dirty burning outdoor furnaces will be an issue when used in many areas.

Wouldn't that be a kick in the butt. You spend thousands to have a wood burner installed and are not allowed to burn it

From what I gather most of the wood burner manufactures are back ordered. Sounds like a run on wood fired equipment.

hot rod

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Paul Pollets

In Seattle...

$2.59 for #2 oil; $.85/Therm for Nat gas (rising 15% Nov.1) and $.086/KwHr for elec.

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Joe Grosso

gas

Joel you are spot on with that one. If you took heating oil out of the Northeast, there would be a total energy collapse. Why don't they demand a moritorium?

RonWHC

Gas prices in your

Nation's Capitol are whatever you negotiated + up to twice that for all the other add-ons & taxes. Gas boys were offering $.70 commercial gas for 05-06 delivery 3 weeks ago. Went up to $1.00 last week. The scary thing is - WGL interrupted some of their largest customers Friday before last. That kept oil tankers running all weekend.

This season could be like 10 years ago. Long cold spell. Utility couldn't keep pressure in the lines. Went out to their easiest to reach, end of main, customers & turned off the valves. Thousands of homes here in So. MD had freeze damage. WGL said "so sorry - call your insurance company." The ol' wood stove looks better every day.

As to we in the East being the last to get natural gas; it has not been that long since WGL replaced the last of our old wooden gas mains. They were the distribution means for several privately owned gas companies before the gummint blessed manopoly took over.