Analysis SR
Spire wants higher rates. What happens when customers use less gas?
If approved as filed, Spire estimates average monthly residential bills would rise by about $10 in western Missouri and $13 in eastern Missouri at current gas prices.
Spire Missouri is seeking about $228 million more in annual gas revenue, with new rates expected by the company in October 2027. The request includes roughly $57 million of expected infrastructure-surcharge recovery, leaving about $171 million of net new revenue.
The case follows nearly $808 million of investment since its last rate filing.
Higher rates have not removed the usage problem
Spire Missouri's previous rate increase took effect in October 2025. In the nine months through June 2026, that change added $145.1 million to revenue compared with a year earlier. Lower gas use, after existing weather adjustments, offset $24.8 million.
Its proposed Usage Stabilization Mechanism would replace the existing weather adjustment for residential and small general-service customers in eastern and western Missouri. Monthly adjustments would compare normal gas use per bill with actual use. They could move customer bills up or down, while leaving changes in customer numbers outside the mechanism.
The return request rests on that change
Research by Ticker Byline shows that Spire's requested 10.5% return on equity assumes the usage-recovery problem is meaningfully addressed. The November 2 regulatory testimony places that request at the bottom of its expert's 10.5% to 11.25% range.
The parties have not agreed on the mechanism.
A new way to set the cost base
The filing also uses a future test year ending September 2028: the period whose projected costs and investment would help set rates. Spire requests an average $5.1 billion rate base, the regulated investment on which it seeks to earn a return, funded with 55% equity.
Missouri law now allows this forward-looking approach unless regulators find it detrimental to the public interest. It also requires later checks against actual investment and specified expenses, with refunds to customers when those amounts fall below the figures used to set rates.
The rate case comes as Spire shifts toward a utility-focused business. It completed its Tennessee gas-utility acquisition in March and sold its marketing and storage businesses in April and June. The Spire company profile follows those changes, the earlier financial results and the earnings expectations that preceded this filing.