Seven area cities that came together as a buying group to negotiate lower natural gas prices for its residents will determine Thursday, Feb. 11, whether to extend an agreement with its supplier.

The Miami Valley Communications Council — which is comprised of eight local municipalities south of Dayton — has a contract ending March 31 with IGS Energy, a gas supplier based in Dublin. Seven of the eight participating municipalities — Centerville, Germantown, Kettering, Miamisburg, Moraine, Oakwood and West Carrollton — entered into an agreement with IGS Energy in August. (Springboro does not participate in the natural gas aggregation program since the city is in the Duke Energy service area.)

On Feb. 9, John K. Weithofer, MVCC’s executive director, notified those seven cities that it has two choices to consider: extend the contract through March 31, 2011, or end it next month.

Weithofer’s letter noted the current contract stipulated that MVCC and IGS Energy “will determine the price for the period through July, 2011. “If MVCC and IGS Energy cannot agree on the price after March, 2010, the contract would terminate and the aggregation group would be returned to Vectren,” he wrote.

City officials have said one of the reasons IGS Energy was chosen was because of the potential savings to more than 30,000 of its customers. The agreement was designed to give residents a chance to save money on their gas bills by participating in an opt-out natural gas aggregation program.

If MVCC votes to get out of the program, then the customers participating will return to Vectren Energy Delivery of Ohio in April.

In August, the MVCC entered into an agreement with ISG Energy and AMPO Inc., a Columbus-based business that offers natural gas aggregation programs to municipalities.

Most of the residents were notified by letter about participating in the program.

Weithofer said IGS Energy recently made a proposal to MVCC that would require the council to provide the natural gas supplier with “access and use of customer information to enroll aggregation members in these offers and products. Any aggregation program customer that enrolls in a fixed price contract would become an IGS Energy customer.”

He said the council will decide either “simply to continue the program with the IGS Energy proposal or not to accept the proposal and end the natural gas aggregation program.”

Weithofer said the current program was saving customers money, however the savings were minimal.

Through December, the program has saved residents in the seven participating cities $188,850 in natural gas costs, according to Weithofer’s letter.

He noted also that the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio had a retail auction in January for gas supply to Vectren customers. “The new auction pricing is approximately 20 percent below the current aggregation program price,” according to Weithofer.

Vectren needs to be notified by Feb. 12 if the aggregation group members were going to return for gas supply services “in order for those customers to be included in the recent PUCO auction contracts,” the letter stated.

Weithofer said he is not sure what recommendation he would make to the council.

Kettering officials, who learned about the vote at their Feb. 9 city council workshop meeting, said they are sure they will vote against continuing the IGS Energy contract.

“The negative aspects of the (new contract) conditions out-weighed the positive aspects of the small savings,” said Al Fullenkamp, Kettering’s assistant city manager.

For more information about the MVCC or the natural gas aggregation program, visit www.mvcc.net.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2414 or kwynn@DaytonDailyNews.com.