NOPEC Does it Again - NOT!

[Bryan Schwegler]

Those rates are certainly lower than what I actually paid DEO.

Here's what my bill actually states:

Jan 9.99
Feb 9.31
Mar 12.86
Apr 14.32
May 16.35

Some I'm not sure who you figured the adjusted rates, but those are the actual rates pulled right from my bill and Dominion just announced rates are even higher for June. So I'm pretty sure that if I was on NOPEC's fixed $9.99 over the winter, my bill would have been less.

NOPEC is not a company and therefore isn't even for-profit. It's a government aggregation entity.

http://nopecinfo.org/about-nopec.html

[Mark Timieski]

Bryan,

Are you sure you were a DOE customer for January and February (the numbers seem low)?

DOE rates include transportation charges, tax, and riders. NOPEC and “Choiceâ€￾ programs do not but have transportation and sales tax as added charges. This makes the billing structures different. Here’s some further comparison:

These are the DOE rates that I have from my bills over the past winter and verified from the “Apples to Applesâ€￾ charts on the PUCO website (depending on your actual date of billing the rates may be different):

Oct. 11.11/MCF
Nov. 12.07/MCF
Dec. 12.00/MCF
Jan. 11.97/MCF
Feb. 12.90/MCF
Mar. 13.89/MCF
Apr. 13.89/MCF
May 16.35/MCF

If you had purchased gas from the fixed rate 9.99/MCF choice rate, you would have been charged sales tax (on the 9.99/MCF) and transportation charges (on each MCF):

Oct. 9.99//MCF + transport of 2.87/MCF + sales tax of 0.75/MCF = 13.61/MCF
Nov. 9.99//MCF + transport of 2.93/MCF + sales tax of 0.75/MCF = 13.67/MCF
Dec. 9.99//MCF + transport of 2.93/MCF + sales tax of 0.75/MCF = 13.67/MCF
Jan. 9.99//MCF + transport of 2.93/MCF + sales tax of 0.75/MCF = 13.67/MCF
Feb. 9.99//MCF + transport of 3.00/MCF + sales tax of 0.75/MCF = 13.74/MCF
Mar. 9.99//MCF + transport of 3.00/MCF + sales tax of 0.75/MCF = 13.74/MCF
Apr. 9.99//MCF + transport of 3.00/MCF + sales tax of 0.75/MCF = 13.74/MCF
May 9.99//MCF + transport of 3.00/MCF + sales tax of 0.75/MCF = 13.74/MCF

In the previous post I had calculated the DOE rates as if they where part of the choice program by removing the transportation charge and then the difference between sales tax charge and tax structure for the DOE rates:

For example, the October rate of $7.64 that I had listed in my previous post:

7.64/MCF + transport of 2.87/MCF +sales tax of 0.60/MCF = 11.11/MCF

So, for the “Choiceâ€￾ program in October the 9.99/MCF rate, you would have been billed 13.61/MCF. DOE customers were billed 11.11/MCF for the same gas.