Westfield Gas, LLC, doing business as Citizens Gas of Westfield, provides service in Hamilton County.
To compare average residential billing amounts for regulated natural gas utilities, see the IURC's monthly residential surveys.
Key components in natural gas bills include gas costs and base rates.
Gas Costs
Natural gas utilities buy gas for their customers in a competitive wholesale market. Indiana law allows utilities to adjust rates periodically to recover changes in those costs, which can go up or down. These costs comprise a significant portion of a residential bill and are recovered through the Gas Cost Adjustment (GCA) process.
- Utilities may recover wholesale gas costs on a dollar-for-dollar basis but may not profit on them.
- Before adjusting rates to reflect the costs, a utility must demonstrate that it has shopped prudently in the competitive market.
- Each GCA filing requires OUCC review and IURC approval.
Citizens Gas of Westfield files gas cost adjustment requests every three months. The utility's most recently approved GCA (Cause No. 37389 GCA-139) will affect bills for September, October, and November 2024.
Base Rates
Base rates cover "non-gas" costs for a utility, including operational, maintenance, and capital costs. A natural gas utility is allowed to earn a return on this portion of the bill.
Citizens Gas of Westfield is seeking a base rate increase in a pending case. The utility and the OUCC have reached a settlement agreement that would limit the increase to approximately $752,000. The OUCC filed supporting testimony on Feb. 10, 2023. Any settlement before the IURC may be approved, denied, or modified.
UPDATE (4-12-23): The IURC approved the settlement agreement in a final order on April 12, 2023.
The OUCC filed the following testimony on Dec. 2, 2022, recommending that the increase be limited to less than $391,000:
The utility's initial request included a more than $1.29 million increase to its annual revenue, as detailed in its case-in-chief:
- Petition
- Testimony: Ghio
- Testimony: Jackson
- Testimony: McKenzie
- Testimony: Johnson
- Testimony: Karner
- Testimony: Miller
- Testimony: Bardhan-Akala
The OUCC's rate case timeline outlines the steps in the process.
The OUCC issued an Oct. 20, 2022 news release to invite consumer comments.
All publicly filed documents in the case (Cause No. 45761) are available on the Commission's website.
Citizens Gas of Westfield's current base rates were set in 2017. In its rate case order, the IURC approved a settlement agreement between the OUCC and the utility that reduced the utility's requested increase from 9.21 percent to 2.85 percent.
Additional Resources
5-29-2024