|
The fuel is used in a wide array of products and services.
Those include cosmetics, self-service laundries, electrical power generation, detergent, paint, medical supplies and plastics.
The higher cost of natural gas will be passed along to some extent in the prices of such products, said Darren McKinney, spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers.
"Whether it's razor blades or soup or whatever else that you're going to buy at the retail or wholesale level, as energy prices rise - natural gas in particular - will invariably exert inflationary pressures throughout the economy," McKinney said.
Gary Gray, who owns 15 coin-operated laundries in Little Rock, Ark., said one way he deals with the high price of natural gas, used to heat water for washing and to dry clothes, is to decrease the minutes a quarter will buy in a dryer.
"It used to be the norm for me was 10 minutes for a quarter," said Gray, whose natural gas costs have gone up by about 20 percent. "I've lowered it to eight minutes."
Consumers have paid $143.7 billion more for natural gas in the past 49 months compared with prices in the previous 49-month period, said Paul N. Cicio, executive director of the Industrial Energy Consumers of America.
Residential users have footed about $43.4 billion in extra costs while manufacturers have paid $72.9 billion more and commercial consumers picked up the tab for $27.4 billion, Cicio said.
Tucsonans who have received their October Southwest Gas bills may have noticed increases.
"The gas cost portion of the bill this October is seven cents higher per therm than it was in October of last year," Libby Howell, a Southwest Gas spokeswoman, told the Tucson Citizen.
The average residential customer in Tucson used 360 therms in 2003, she said.
Howell said the increase is mitigated by "a monthly gas-cost adjuster that is based on a 12-month rolling average."
The adjuster, required by the Arizona Corporation Commission, is intended to moderate spikes in commodity prices.
Although Southwest Gas passes higher natural gas prices on to consumers, the company doesn't like having to do it, Howell said.
"We make no profit from the gas cost portion of the bill, so we don't like it any better than consumers do when gas costs go up," said Howell.
Increased gas prices have had no immediate impact on Tucson Electric Power Co. customers because the utility's rates are frozen through 2008.
"We rely on natural gas to run some of our power plants," Joe Salkowski, a TEP spokesman, told the Citizen. "To the degree that we do, it increases the costs of operating those generators."
TEP completed a 1-mile transmission line north of Tucson last year that has increased the company's ability to import power, he said.
"We have tried to minimize the use of our own natural gas-fired generators, instead purchasing power from the market at prices that are typically better than what we could make that same power for ourselves," he said.
While the most visible result for consumers is higher home heating bills, other consequences include higher costs for food, detergent, paint, medical supplies and telecommunications, Cicio said.
