East Resources Inc., a gas utility company operating since 1937, is a privately owned Oil and Gas Exploration business. Founded in 1983, East Resources Inc., has grown from a four-employee company to one with currently over 205 employees, operating in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and Colorado. The company operates 3,000 oil and gas wells and controls nearly a million acres of leasehold in the Appalachian Basin. The utility company began operation in 1937 as a division of Penzoil Company. Since that time, the utility company has grown to service over 5,000 customers in 21 counties in West Virginia. Average MCF usage per customer is 72.5/year and the average bill per customer is $775/year for 2005. The current tariff pricing for a residential customer is a monthly customer charge of $6.00 and a commodity charge of $10.621/MCF consumed. The monthly fees change slightly for business and reduced rate customers. East currently utilizes over 1,000 miles of pipelines to both serve customers and gather/transport it's own gas production. Shortly after acquiring the Utility Company in 2000, the company recognized the need to aggressively inject capital funds into the Utility budget for improving and maintaining the pipelines used to transport gas to customers and the gathering systems. Hundreds of miles of pipeline have been upgraded and replaced in the past several years with an even more ambitious program in place for 2006. In 2006, East will begin its largest capital project ever in southern West Virginia, in an effort to further optimize costs, reduce line loss and provide better service to our customers. We are currently planning to replace almost 100 miles of pipeline in the gathering system and over 25 miles in the utility system with a capital budget in excess of 25 million dollars. Of increasing concern to the small public utility are increases in the wholesale cost of natural gas. These costs cannot be completely passed on to the customers and must be managed by the utility while still trying to profitably manage the business. The cost of natural gas has soared in the past several years; these high prices were aggravated by the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina and Rita. The price of natural gas on the open market recently hit an all time high of $15/mcf. West Virginia gas utilities are seeking relief from the high purchase gas prices through rate increases approved by the Public Service Commission of West Virginia, (PSC). While the PSC must act as an advocate for the consumer, the small public utilities of West Virginia hope their needs will be balanced against the needs of the consumer so that an equitable solution is found in the future for providing gas for heating and cooking for all customers and allowing utility companies a reasonable profit. Home | Offices | Safety | Manage Your Account | History | Tariff | New Services © 2007 East Resources, Inc. All Rights Reserved.