A utility bill encompassing gas and electricity sticks out from a mailbox at an apartment complex in Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap

Planned gas, electricity rate hikes in Q2 to increase burden on households, businesses

By Lee Kyung-min

An office worker in her 30s surnamed Lee had to take a harder look at her December gas bill. It showed she was being charged almost 50 percent more than the year before.

"There are four people in my family and the rate was 550,000 won ($449), far higher than last year's which was around 350,000 won. I couldn't believe what I was seeing at first. We did not turn up the thermostat all that much ― no more than usual anyway. I thought something might have gone wrong with the meters when calculating the amount used."

She heard on the news over the past year about Russia's invasion of Ukraine pushing up global energy prices, and that some European countries were bracing for an energy crisis. But little did she know that the military conflict halfway around the world would come to bear this hard at home.

"The high gas prices are cited as the main reason why the state-run Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) and Korea Gas Corp. (KOGAS) saw continued losses. Honestly, I didn't care too much about that news until recently when it became clear to me that it affects me directly in the form of unreasonably high and unavoidable monthly bills."

An unmarried man in his 30s shared a similar experience. He was charged 130,000 won, a figure he says was "unacceptably high." He is an office worker who lives alone in a small housing unit that provides a centralized heating system.

"The bill was too high compared to the year before, since I didn't use that much heating last month," he said. "But I could die ― quite literally ― amid the brutal cold snap these past few weeks without the heating, so I'm thinking about eating less or finding other ways to cut my spending."

These are only two of the many bill-paying citizens in the country who are becoming frustrated by the spike in gas bills.

Gas meters in Seoul / Korea Times file

Data from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy showed the liquefied natural gas (LNG) price last year averaged $34.24 per metric million British thermal unit (MMBtu), a widely used measure of LNG as heat content or energy value. It was over double the $15.04 in 2021.