March 6, 2000 N.B. power blames sky-high oil prices for five-per-cent hike in power rates

FREDERICTON (CP) -- The sky-high price of oil has seeped onto the power bills of New Brunswick homeowners.

NB Power announced Monday its residential customers will be hit with an average 5-per-cent increase in power rates starting April 1, mostly to cover the utility's oil bill.

Rates for businesses and industry will not change. "Oil is certainly a big factor," said Ken Little, NB Power's vice-president of customer service and marketing. He said the last rate increase was in October, 1998 when the price of oil was $10 US a barrel. In February, the Crown corporation was paying more than $20 US a barrel.

"That's a big piece of cost for us." NB Power said the increase will cover a $40-million spike in its oil bill, about $10-million in planned improvements to transmission lines and to counter falling income from the sale of power to other jurisdictions. Edmond Blanchard, the Liberal energy critic, was upset that home owners were only ones being dinged by NB Power.

"Somewhere in government someone must have decided that consumers get a 5 per cent increase while everybody else is limited at a lower rate," he said in an interview.

"If that's the decision on where we're headed from a policy standpoint, get ready -- you're going to be paying a lot more in the future as a domestic consumer."

But Little said the province has used money made from its export sales of electricity to keep its domestic prices lower. However, NB Power is predicting less income from exports this year, which also contributed to the need to hike rates for residential customers. Little said that even after the rate increase, the average residential customer in New Brunswick will be playing 10 per cent less than in Prince Edward Island, 8 per cent less than in Nova Scotia, and about half as much as someone in the state of Maine. (New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal)

http://www.canoe.ca/AtlanticTicker/CANOE-wire.NB-Power-Hike.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), March 09, 2000