On Monday BGE said customers should expect natural gas bills will be 25 percent lower this winter compared with those of last winter. I suspect they're being conservative. Wholesale natural gas prices have crashed.

A year ago gas was selling in the Gulf Coast for 70 cents a therm; now it's 30 cents. That wholesale price isn't the whole equation -- you pay interstate shipping and local distribution charges to get it to your furnace, and those haven't changed much. Still, I bet many households will see gas bills fall by more than 25 percent, especially if this winter isn't unusually cold the way last year's was.

BGE senior VP Mark Case estimates the delivered cost for natural gas will be $1.04 per therm this winter. That suggests he's expecting a "commodity" cost -- delivered gas minus the distribution charge -- of 70 or 75 cents. Lately, BGE's monthly commodity costs have been running in the 50- and 60-cent range. So they would have to rise substantially to achieve "only" the winter-to-winter savings projected by BGE. The October commodity price, just posted, is 59 cents per therm, up from 50 cents in September. BGE has already bought lots of its gas for the winter, anyway.

As usual, Washington Gas Energy Services offers a fixed-price, competing natural-gas product to go up against BGE's floating price. For a year they'll lock you in at a commodity price of 73 cents per therm. For two years they'll lock you in at 85 cents. I'm pretty sure the one-year deal will turn out to be more expensive than BGE's default program. The two-year package I'm not so sure about. If the economy recovers in a healthy way, natural gas prices could easily be north of 85 cents for the winter of 2010-2011.

In any case, I'm sticking with BGE's regular product for now. Last season I spent $950 on BGE natural gas during November through March, or about $1.30 per therm. I could handle a decrease. How about you?