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Washington Gas requests Virginia rate increase

By Jeff Clabaugh

WASHINGTON — Washington Gas has filed an application with the Virginia State Corporation Commission for a residential customer rate increase.

The utility says the rate increase is necessary to recover the costs of providing service in Virginia and to earn its allowed rate of return.

The base rate increase, if approved, would be $22.9 million in new revenue, or approximately an additional $2.10 a month on a typical residential customer’s bill. It represents a 3 percent increase on residential customer total gas bills.

Washington Gas expects the new rates to become effective in January 2019. The VSCC approved another rate increase for Washington Gas in Virginia in September 2017.

In May, Washington Gas applied for a residential rate increase for its Maryland customers.

Washington Gas lowered bills earlier this year by an average of about $2 a month by passing on federal corporate income tax savings as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

Last month, Canadian utility AltaGas completed its $6.4 billion acquisition of Washington Gas parent company WGL Holdings.

The Iran war could drive up costs for petroleum-derived products like clothes and crayons

By The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — It might be hard to imagine the Iran war weighing on stuffed toys with names like Snuggle Glove, Bizzikins and Wobblies, but even plush playthings are not immune when oil shipments from the Middle East are constrained. Like many soft toys, the creatures developed by a manufacturer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, are made with polyester and acrylic, synthetic fibers derived from petroleum. Three weeks after the war started, suppliers in China notified Aleni Brands that getting the materials already was costing them 10% to 15% more, CEO Ricardo Venegas said. “I think this situation demonstrates how much oil permeates throughout our system, and we can’t get away from it,” said Venegas, who founded Aleni Brands last year and is in the process of adding product lines. “Who would have thought that the price of a toy would have a direct relationship with oil?” It's not just toys. Petrochemicals derived from oil and natural gas go into making more than 6,000 consumer products, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Computer keyboards, lipstick, tennis rackets, pajamas, soft contact lenses, detergent, chewing gum, shoes, crayons, shaving cream, pillows, aspirin, dentures, tape, umbrellas and nylon guitar strings are just a few of them.
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