Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Southwest Gas seeking rate increase

CARSON CITY — Southwest Gas Co. has applied to the state Public Utilities Commission to raise rates in Southern and Northern Nevada to recover the higher cost of fuel.

The company says it wants to recover more than $17 million in higher natural gas purchases, effective Oct. 1

The application shows that a single-family home in Las Vegas would pay an average $1.66 a month more, an increase of 4.9 percent. In Northern Nevada, outside of Reno and Sparks, the average increase for a single-family home would be 40 cents a month, or 0.6 percent.

The utility also agreed to pay a $300,000 fine for two ruptures of its underground natural gas lines in the Las Vegas area.

Southwest and the staff of the PUC agreed to the fine over two violations of federal pipeline safety regulations.

On July 26, 2016, near Acacia Tree and Anasazi drives, a company construction crew using a backhoe ruptured an underground natural gas line, interrupting service for 3,520 customers. Twenty homes also had to be evacuated.

The second violation occurred Sept. 27, 2016, at Cheyenne Avenue near Revere Street. A company doing construction work for the Nevada Department of Transportation drilled a hole into a pipeline that Southwest Gas had failed to properly locate, according to the stipulation with the PUC.

The stipulation says Southwest will not seek recovery of the fine from ratepayers.