Natural gas prices at 6-year low

The Georgia natural gas prices posted this week are as low as they’ve been in six years — and an 180-degree-turn from last spring’s gas market.

And that means a different message for consumers than last year at this time.

“If you want a fixed rate,” said Coweta-Fayette Natural Gas president Dan Hart, “now is probably the time to do it.”

“This is a good time for consumers.”

Coweta-Fayette is one of three natural gas companies owned by electric cooperatives.

Last spring, it wouldn’t even offer a locked-in fixed gas contract because prices were so unusually high.

Fixed gas rates posted this week are running between $100 and $400 per year less than they were last spring and early summer.

Wholesale gas, which was commanding more than $13 for every ten therms last year, had an April settlement price of just $3.60 cents.

What’s going on?

The battered economy and depressed demand are part of the explanation, according to Scana Energy spokeswoman Simone McKinney.

She said the natural gas storage levels also came out of the winter unusually high.

Coweta-Fayette’s Hart said the market also appears to be more stable in general.

“I doubt there are any speculators in the market now, as there were last summer,” he said.

“We’re not seeing the daily radical swings in wholesale prices that we had become used to seeing,” he said.

Prices could go lower, “or we could be sitting on the bottom now,” Hart said.

Prices can’t go much lower, though, and have much more room to rise.

Electric utilities could begin driving up gas prices as soon air-conditioning weather arrives, by using their gas-fired plants heavily.

“With gas this cheap, you know what they’re going to be burning,” he said.