By Charlotte Lane, Chair West Virginia Public Service Commission
Your Mountaineer Gas Company bill has loads of information, all on one page. Your 16-digit
account number, at the top-right, is confidential personal information. You should only provide it
when you have initiated a contact with the company or are certain you are speaking to an
authorized company representative.
Also on the right are your current Mountaineer Gas charges. The company has broken down this information in great detail. The first line is the charge the company has levied for the cost of the gas you used and the amount you used in the previous month. This is broken down into MCF, which stands for thousand cubic feet of gas. For most customers with heating, hot water, stove, and other gas appliances, this will be the largest component on the bill, certainly in the winter months.
The cost of gas charge is currently $10.67 per MCF for Mountaineer’s residential customers.
This per MCF charge includes the estimated cost of natural gas delivered to the customer,
including some portion of transportation and storage costs; over- or under-recovery of the cost
price from the previous rate period; and state business and occupation taxes. Mountaineer does
not make any profit at all on this component of its rates.
The second-largest portion of this section represents charges intended to recover operation and
maintenance costs and the company’s return on investments.
The third portion shows the Infrastructure Replacement and Expansion Plan charge. The IREP
charge represents the company’s investment in replacing aging infrastructure, as well as
measurement and regulator equipment that is necessary because of government regulations.
Next in the main column is the customer charge. This allows the company to recover costs for
customer billings, reading and maintaining meters, and other customer-related operating costs.
The Pipeline Demand Charge is currently $11.08 per month for residential customers. It is
intended to recover part of the cost Mountaineer pays to transmission, gathering, and storage
companies to deliver gas to its distribution systems.
There may be a municipal surcharge, depending on whether your town levies a tariff on the gas
bill. Some towns also levy an excise tax on the bill. These charges are pass-through taxes that the company collects for the towns.
Mountaineer makes it simple to figure out where your money is going. If you need further
clarity, give the company a call. They will be glad to assist you.