Residential customers in Northern Kentucky would see their natural-gas bills increase an average of $7.16 per month, to $67.85, under a proposal filed Friday by Cinergy Corp.

        The increase would pay not for the higher wholesale price of natural gas, but instead would be used to pay for improvements to the gas-distribution system.

        The utility said in mid-April that it would seek the rate increase, and filed the formal application Friday with the Public Service Commission.

        Cinergy will signal whether it will ask for the same kind of increase in Ohio by early June, a spokesman said.

        Overall, the increase in Northern Kentucky would increase base rates by $7.3 million a year, or 8.4 percent. Company officials said they have invested more than $60 million in the system since the last increase in 1993.

        Under the proposal, the average commercial customer's rates would increase about 3.3 percent, while large industrial customers would pay between 2.8 percent and 10.3 percent less.

        Union Light, Heat & Power — Cinergy's Northern Kentucky unit — would spend $112 million on a capital-improvement program over the next 10 years, and would seek to recover those costs through a monthly charge on customers' bills.

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