PUC Nears Decision On BTC Rate Increases

Last week Friday marked the deadline for members of the public to provide feedback to the PUC about the proposed rates increases.

Noting that the PUC received an overwhelming response to its public consultation exercise, executive director of the utilities regulator, Barrett Russell, said the PUC would begin reviewing that feedback this week.

"We will evaluate all those comments and try to categorise them," Mr. Russell said.

"We will then discuss our findings with the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) and find out what response they can give. We will then make a determination as to what can be published and what will be put in our final document."

Prices are more than 45 percent higher than a year ago, but more than US$4 off the all-time high of US$70.85 a barrel reached Aug. 30 when Katrina made landfall.

Natural gas reached a high of US$12.865 per 1,000 cubic feet Tuesday, before retreating to US$11.851. Heating oil fell more than 6 cents to US$1.9750 a gallon (3.8 liters) while gasoline dropped 7 cents to US$1.9680 a gallon.

On London's International Petroleum Exchange, November Brent crude oil futures fell 96 cents to US$64.65 a barrel.

In Vienna, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was seeking agreement Tuesday on a plan to reassure markets there was enough crude oil, but appeared to be backing away from an immediate boost in output.

OPEC President Sheik Ahmed Fahd Al Ahmed Al Sabah said support was building for the proposal to make available 2 million extra barrels of oil a day to counter supply fears and stabilize prices but its latest offering, like the others, appeared to have little impact.

"OPEC does not have any impact to lower prices," said Emori. "They don't have light, sweet crude _ only heavy, sour crude which is harder to make into petroleum products."

Demand for products like heating oil and diesel traditionally rises during winter.

"It is difficult to see any changes on the supply side that would bring the present period of high prices to an end in the short term," the London-based Center for Global Energy Studies said. "OPEC's spare capacity has dropped to 2 million barrels per day, but much of that outside of Saudi Arabia remains of questionable usefulness."

The U.S. Minerals Management Service said more than 800,000 barrels of daily output cannot be produced because of Katrina, amounting to more than 55 percent of the daily total. Some 83 platforms and five rigs are left unstaffed from Katrina and Rita, the MMS said.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center warned people along the Gulf Coast to watch Rita closely and officials in Galveston, Texas, were calling for a voluntary evacuation.

"These storms are pretty big and broad sometimes, so you take no chances," said Chevron spokesman Mickey Driver. "This is standard operating procedure when storms like Rita appear."