The rising cost of fuel, it's put a hurting on everyone's pocketbook, and now, it's going to drive up your light bill. BEL today announced that it is applying to the PUC for an increase in prices across the board. A release explains that the request follows a 140% increase in the cost of oil: a serious blow to a company where two thirds of its operating costs are indexed to oil prices. So how much will your bill go up? Speaking with Alfonso Noble today, CEO Lyn young told us what his company is asking for:
Lynn Young – CEO Belize Electricity Limited
"We've formally requested from the Public Utilities Commission and adjustment in the rates to help us through this difficult time with high oil prices. We all know what has been happening with oil prices. It's gone up to over 50 dollars a barrel and the projections are that it might even go up as high as 60 maybe more. We've been absorbing all these increases for the past 2, 3 years but it's reached a point where we can't do it any more. So we're asking the Public Utilities Commission to approve an adjustment and we think its going to be an interim adjustment for maybe a year or so. But of course that depends on what happens with oil prices."
"We are asking for 3 cents increase. Our average tariff is about 34 point 9 cents almost 35 cents so I guess it works out to a little less than 10 percent adjustment."
Alfonso Noble
"So a kilowatt hour 38 cents is what you are looking for?"
Lynn Young
"Yes, roughly, on average, yes. Because bear in mind that the social rate customers pay 21 cents per kilowatt hour whereas you have street lights which is 41 cents per kilowatt hour."
Alfonso Noble
"Are you all anticipating that this is an across the board increase from social rates right up to the industrial consumers?"
Lynn Young
"That's what we proposed to the PUC because we think it is only fair that everybody shares the cost of doing this. We have been absorbing these costs on the understanding that when oil prices starts falling we are going to get it back. But the prices have just taken a steep increase since about the middle of this year and we feel that if we don't do something now it's going to be a worse adjustment next year. So we feel that the best thing to do is to do an adjustment now so that we don't have to do anything more next year."
"We have absorbed about 14 million dollars in extra costs due to oil prices so far and what we are asking for really in this 3 cents really is to start recovering that. And once that's been recovered we will remove the adjustment that's because we feel that by the middle of next year we can have Chalillo on line and we continue to look for other ways to reducing the cost."
"I hope that people will understand but I will understand if people aren't happy about it. We weren't happy when the Mexicans increased their rates by 30 percent to us. We aren't happy that oil prices has gone up by 100 percent so I can understand that nobody is going to be happy that they are seeing an increase. We see how people felt about the increases for gasoline at the pump. We see how people felt about the increases in water rates. So we know that it's difficult to offset any kind of increase. We are hoping that people will understand even if they don't like it."
Young promises that when Chalillo comes on stream in the middle of next year, it should offset the crushing increases in gas prices. In its release, BEL claims that it has not had a rate increase since 1984.