Consumers are paying the lowest price for natural gas in nearly five years.

Black Hills Energy is charging about 54 cents per therm in November, compared to about $1.05 cents for the same month in 2005.

The cost of natural gas makes up the largest part of a monthly bill and is passed directly to the consumer, said Black Hills Energy spokesman Bob McKeon. A bill also includes customer and delivery charges.

While low natural gas prices can affect a bill, there are other factors to consider, such as weather and the amount of gas you use.

A cold spell prompted some customers to turn on their furnaces last month -the second coldest October on record in Lincoln. But then it was unseasonably warm in early November.

Depending on when they get their bills - Black Hills Energy reads meters and sends out bills continuously - customers could be seeing higher or lower costs for natural gas because they could have cold November days and warm October days.

Back in September, Black Hills said natural gas market prices were at a seven-year low. They're still low, McKeon said, but have gone up slightly since then.

So what's in store for a typical residential customer for the rest of the winter heating season?

"It should still cost less to heat their home this winter. How much less is hard to say with absolute certainty, but our projection is it should cost about 15 percent less than last winter for the natural gas commodity which accounts for the largest portion of the bill," McKeon said.

A weak economy has contributed to softer market prices for natural gas, McKeon said. Also, this year's mild summer caused electric utilities to use less natural gas to generate power.

But McKeon cautioned the market prices can change quickly. A strong hurricane season, for instance, could disrupt the production and transport of natural gas from the Gulf Coast into the Midwest.

Lincoln Electric System took advantage of low natural gas prices and sold a one-year transportation contract to help reduce its 2010 budget, said LES spokesman Russ Reno.

"We made a little bit of money," he said. "We reduced our fuel expenses by 1 percent this year ... because of the lower cost of natural gas."

Doug Bantam, chief operating officer for LES, said Friday there's a record amount of natural gas being stored right now - 12 percent higher than the five-year historic average - and that has contributed to low prices. A projected mild winter is also having an impact.

The National Weather Service forecast calls for above-normal temperatures through February due to the El Nino effect, said Rick Chermok, a meteorologist with the federal agency's office in Valley.

El Nino is a disruption of the ocean-atmosphere system in the tropical Pacific, which influences weather around the globe.

Chermok said El Nino has strengthened, a signal that the northern half of the U.S. could have above-normal temperatures.

But we could also see more snowfall amounts and more freezing rain, he said.

Reach Algis J. Laukaitis at 402-473-7243 or alaukaitis@journalstar.com.