Group Contracting

Natural Gas Purchasing: For the past 15 years, Northland Healthcare Alliance has consolidated a group of healthcare providers and schools into a purchasing alliance to buy alternate natural gas together. Many healthcare providers are aware that they can save money by purchasing alternate gas which is priced considerably less but also means that when the pipelines are near capacity that they go offline and use their backup fueling systems such as fuel oil or propane.

Northland has found that by buying the alternate gas together, they demand best market pricing and over the years have saved members hundreds of thousands of dollars on the cost of natural gas. This year the difference between bids from the vendors was substantial. In addition, Northland fixed prices over the heavy months and as a result they saved additional dollars for their members because the index price went up significantly more than market projections.