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There's more to this than that. What you have to remember is that utilities are regulated. This means that they are only allowed to charge a certain amount above their costs. The big problem is that what they are allowed to charge is generally not that easy to change. They have to apply for a rate hearing before the local government regulatory agency and hope that it gets granted. The local government sometimes is cooperative and sometimes not. They may not condone a rate increase at that time since they are all up for election, and voters might not like seeing their gas bill go up. Sometimes these rate increases are deferred by the regulatory agency until it all hits with one big bang. This may or may not be what you are seeing.
As for the reason for rate increases, consider this. The utility that is supplying your gas generally doesn't produce the gas out of the ground. This means that the utility has to pay the going rate for natural gas. Since natural gas is a commodity, it's price fluctuates daily based on a complex series of conditions (supply vs. demand, weather, amount of natural gas that is in storage in the ground, etc.). The price of natural gas is one of those things that is very difficult to predict. Natural gas is produced all summer and stored underground in a different area so that it can be produced back through the winter at the rates necessary to meet the demand. If just a few things are off, the amount of storage can be high or low, and the price adjusts accordingly. These utilities used to have long-term fixed price contracts that allowed them to know what their costs would be. In many cases that is no longer the situation and natural gas prices have continued to rise.
Thus, we have a situation where the utility may not know its costs long-term and can't adjust its prices accordingly to meet the regulations regarding profit. We have government agencies that don't want to piss off voters since the chief regulators are generally in an elected position. It is not an easy solution, and possibly your local utility did business in a bad enough fashion that they are in debt trouble. They also have pretty intensive capital costs related to treating the natural gas so that it can be sold in your home. Regulations change all the time and these facilities sometimes have to be abandoned or revamped to meet new regulations. This has a lot to do with debt retirement.
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