Heating bills increase
Campus View Apartments do not use natural gas because the apartments only use electricity.
Published Jan. 17, 2006
With increasing natural gas prices throughout the United States, Columbia's heating bills have seen an increase of about 18 percent, AmerenUE Communications Executive Mike Cleary said.
"The increase is purely based on the cost of natural gas alone," Cleary said. "Two-thirds to three-fourths of a citizens' natural gas bill is just the cost of gas from suppliers, and we don't make a profit off of that because that money goes directly to our suppliers. Our own delivery charge has not increased."
University Place Apartments has seen a significant increase from last year, manager Doug Miller said. They are using whatever additional funds they have to pay for the increased bills.
"Since our tenants sign leases so far in advance, they do not experience any additional charges," Miller said. "We've been more conscious of abuses of natural gas, such as people who leave their windows open with the heat on."
Cleary said several problems have arisen in the past few years due to increases in gas prices, which mainly are caused by an imbalance between supply and demand.
"The price has been affected by the hurricanes in the Gulf, which damaged 20 percent of our natural gas supplies, and the companies are still working to repair damages," Cleary said. "Also, natural gas fields in the U.S. are becoming depleted, and there is a lot of land in the U.S. off limits to drilling."
Another problem with natural gas is, unlike oil, natural gas has to be liquefied to come from overseas countries, and the United States has limited facilities equipped to handle it, Cleary said.
Campus View Apartments do not use natural gas. The apartments only use electricity, property manager Jenny Smith said. Because the apartments were built in 1990, she said, at that time, the owners figured electricity would cause less chance of fires in a college apartment setting.
"Most of the new apartments...I would assume are all electric, so mostly you would find natural gas in older apartment complexes and in the houses on East Campus," Smith said.
AmerenUE has tried to keep prices down by mixing shorter contracts with longer ones, Cleary said.
"We've been fairly successful at keeping costs low since our prices have not been as high as some companies in the Midwest," Cleary said.
Although AmerenUE is the third largest natural gas provider in the state, it is the No. 1 electric company in Missouri. Electricity rates for the company have gone down slightly in 19 years, Cleary said.
"Southern utilities are heavily dependent on natural gas for electricity, so they've seen their rates rise significantly," Cleary said. "We rely on coal, nuclear and hydro-energy, which are the most cost-effective resources for electricity."