Natural Gas Price to Consumers Drops Off the Table (NST)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Natural gas prices to some consumers in Massachusetts could fall 70% this summer. NSTAR (NYSE: NST) has filed a proposal with the Massachusetts public utilities regulator to reduce its summer rates from last summer’s $1.30/therm to a summer 2009 rate of $0.38/therm.

The continued decline of natural gas prices gets the credit for the price reduction. As with most natural gas suppliers, the cost of natural gas to NSTAR’s customers does not include a profit for the company. It is simply a pass-through cost. That’s why the rate proposal is having virtually no impact on the company’s share price today. Consumers will pay less for gas, but NSTAR’s profits will remain the same.

Paul Ausick
March 17, 2009

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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