MORGANTOWN – Hope Gas and Consumers Gas have jointly submitted to the Public Service Commission a proposed order to approve Hope’s acquisition of Consumers Gas.
They are asking the PSC for a final order in time to allow closing to occur on or around Sept. 20 so that Consumers’ purchased gas prices can be included in Hope’s 2025 filing on that matter.
Hope, based in Morgantown, serves about 131,000 residential, commercial, wholesale and industrial customers in 37 counties. Consumers serves about 8,500 customers in Cabell, Jackson, Putnam, Ritchie, Roane and Wayne counties.
The companies jointly filed for PSC approval of the acquisition on May 10. At that time, Hope President and CEO Morgan O’Brien told the PSC that the two companies service footprint overlapped in all but Wayne County and the merger would bring Hope service to Wayne for the first time.
“This expands Hope’s footprint and enhances our ability to extend safe, reliable service to unserved and underserved areas of the state,” he told the PSC, “while taking advantage of Hope’s existing management, operations, systems, customer support structures, and facilities providing counties.”
Consumers’ base rate is currently lower than Hope’s and the proposal stipulates that Consumers’ customers will continue to pay the lower rate until Hope’s next base rate case filing.
Purchased gas costs are also included in customer bills, and Consumers’ customers will pay the lower of Consumers’ or Hope’s rate until Nov. 1, 2025 – the effective date of Hope’s 2025 Purchased Gas Adjustment filing.
Hope plans to hire Consumers’ approximately 26 employees. “Hope will make good faith efforts to maintain employees with historical knowledge of the Consumers physical system and physical operations.” And it will notify PSC if it intends to close any of the three Consumers service centers.
The purchase price of this deal has not been disclosed.
Hope has been growing through acquisition. Hope Gas acquired Peoples Gas WV in October 2023. The deal was valued at 37 million and brought 13,000 new customers to Hope. Starting Tuesday, all former Peoples Gas customers were to be fully transitioned to the Hope Gas systems for customer service, billing and online account management.
On December 1, 2023, Hope acquired Southern Public Service Company, which served 6,400 customers in southern West Virginia. And on On June 1 this year, Hope acquired Standard Gas Company, Bazzle Gas, McIntosh Oil & Gas and Ross & Wharton Gas, bringing in another 530 customers.
Email: dbeard@dominionpost.com
