Storms double heating costs

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Many U.S. households will face a near doubling of home heating costs this winter because of severe disruptions in Gulf of Mexico supplies of natural gas and home heating oil, energy analysts say.

Guy Caruso, head of the Energy Information Administration, yesterday said his agency next week will raise its forecast of heating costs rising from 34 percent to 71 percent over last year, taking into account extensive damage to Gulf-area facilities caused by Hurricane Rita.

Based on damage from Hurricane Katrina alone, combined with forecasts for a colder-than-normal winter in the eastern U.S., AccuWeather.com already was predicting increased costs of 50 percent to 70 percent.

But analysts say those estimates will rise sharply because Rita, which hit areas of the western Gulf left untouched by Katrina, essentially doubled the damage to irreplaceable natural gas facilities and refineries from the earlier storm.

Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman also warned yesterday of "problems" for natural gas customers -- which includes much of the Washington area.

"I'm confident that we're going to have enough gas to heat people's homes, but it's going to be expensive," he told reporters at an energy conference. He and President Bush have been urging consumers to conserve fuel this winter to minimize the pain from high heating bills.

Natural gas customers in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, where about 90 percent ofhomes are heated by gas, are the most vulnerable and will see the biggest price increases because there are little or no substitutes for gas piped in from the Gulf.

Natural gas prices have more than doubled since last winter to nearly $14 per million British thermal units in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. By comparison, oil prices are roughly where they were before the storms, and gasoline prices are up about 50 percent over last year.

The difference is that there are few ways to make up the shortfall in Gulf production caused by the storms, which as of yesterday remained at about 66 percent and had been as high as 80 percent.

Each day that facilities remain closed adds to the 7 percent of annual gas supplies already cut off by the storms at a time of year when utilities usually are building up stores for the winter.