Dominion Retail Customer Count Relatively Steady

Dominion Retail reported a loss including noncontrolling interests before interest and taxes of $8 million for the quarter ending September 30, 2012, on mark-to-market impacts, versus a loss of $1 million a year ago.

Dominion Retail's average electric customer count was 699,000 for the three months ended September 30, 2012, versus 704,000 for the three months ended June 30, 2012, and 773,000 for the year-ago three months ended September 30, 2011.

Dominion Retail's average natural gas customer count was 553,000 for the three months ended September 30, 2012, versus 555,000 for the three months ended June 30, 2012, and 557,000 for the year-ago three months ended September 30, 2011.

Dominion Retail's average Products and Services customer count was 879,000 for the three months ended September 30, 2012, versus 875,000 for the three months ended June 30, 2012, and 850,000 for the year-ago three months ended September 30, 2011.

For the three months ended September 30, 2012, Dominion Retail's average total customer count was 2.132 million, versus an average of 2.134 million for the three months ended June 30, 2012, and 2.181 million a year ago.

During an earnings call, executives acknowledged intense competition and margin pressure, but noted that over the last three months, Dominion Retail has essentially held its customer count steady, and reported a slight improvement in margin with respect to lower supply costs.

Electric volumes for Dominion Retail were 4.478 million MWh for the quarter ending September 30, 2012, versus 4.089 million MWh a year ago.

Executives said that sales increased despite the lower customer count due to contracts to supply about four aggregations. Aggregation customers are not included in the reported customer count, but aggregation volumes are included in the reported sales data.

Dominion Retail gas volumes were 10,027 mmcf for the quarter ending September 30, 2012, versus 10,775 mmcf a year ago.

Operating revenue for Dominion Retail for the quarter ended September 30, 2012 was $336 million.