Kenney calls for PGW to act more like a commercial business

Philadelphia City Councilman Jim Kenney wants to make the Philadelphia Gas Works more like a for-profit business.

 

 

To do so, he’s urging PGW to get involved with gas from the Marcellus Shale formation in rural Pennsylvania.

Kenney says he believes the city-owned Philadelphia Gas Works needs to think and act like a private operation.

“In this era of Marcellus Shale and Philadelphia Energy Solutions coming into Sunoco and the other plant there, I think we need to get PGW to be as nimble and able to pivot as possible,” he said.

Kenney says the use of shale gas could help make the Philadelphia utility profitable and also be able to continue to help seniors and others who struggle to pay gas bills.

“At some point in time, I’d like to see if we can get it piped here or trucked here or something here,” he said. “It is a cheap and pretty clean form of energy that we could use in a city with a lot of people living in poverty and can’t afford their gas bills.”

PGW, which is required to purchase the cheapest fuel it can find, now buys gas transported by a pipeline from the Gulf of Mexico.