11.   If gas utilities purchase more of their winter gas earlier in the year, that might make gas more expensive this summer.

12.   If telephone service glitches, gas utilities should have satellite-system telephones to stay in communication with each other.

13.   In Texas and a few other places where local gas utilities have been aggressive, some fleet operators are converting.

14.   In Kansas, about five dozen communities, such as Winfield and Osage, own gas utilities.

15.   Iowa-Illinois Gas and Electric and Midwest Resources agreed to merge, creating the largest electric and gas utility in Iowa.

16.   Joe, who wears close-cropped hair and Drew Carey-style glasses, works for a gas utility.

17.   Local gas utilities such as Missouri Gas and Western buy gas from producers and use pipeline companies to carry it to their own distribution networks.

18.   Most gas utilities are doing well, in large part because customers are using more gas, rather than because gas prices are up.

19.   Missouri regulators in June renewed the hedging program for Laclede Gas, the gas utility serving St. Louis.

20.   The companies would also be following a trend, because in recent months several larger mergers have been announced between gas utilities and electric utilities.