residual oil will increase from 78 million bbl to 83 million bbl. The average 

 annual growth rate for electrical energy demand is anticipated to be about 

 4.5% for the next ten years (Florida Electric Power Coordinating Group 1980). 



Gas 



According to Moody's Public Utility Manual , natural gas is distributed in 

 Northwest Florida to Panama City, Fort Walton Beach, and Pensacola. Panama 

 City in Bay County is served by Gulf Natural Gas Corporation, Inc. This cor- 

 poration, with its main office in Panama City, also supplies gas to customers 

 in Tampa for propane carburation for motor vehicles. It is a subsidiary of 

 the West Florida Natural Gas Company. The other two communities. Fort Walton 

 Beach and Pensacola, are served by municipally operated utilities. St. Joe 

 Natural Gas Company, Inc. services residences in some parts of the region 

 (Florida Public Service Commission 1981). 



The Getty Oil Company applied to the State of Florida to construct a 

 shell foundation and to drill one natural gas exploratory well in East Bay 

 in Santa Rosa County. The hearing officer for the State recommended that the 

 application be approved in early 1981, but despite this, the Governor and 

 Cabinet, meeting as the Board of trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust 

 Fund, denied the application. The issue is currently in litigation. The case 

 does not directly pertain to potential OCS oil and gas activities because the 

 site is in Florida waters. If the permit is ever granted and recoverable 

 deposits of gas and/or oil are discovered, the onshore impacts of this devel- 

 opment might indicate similar types of impacts from OCS oil and gas recovery. 



Telephone 



Six telephone companies provide service to the counties in Northwest 

 Florida. The General Telephone Company of Florida accounts for about 60% of 

 the total telephone service in the State, and has 11 exchanges in parts of 

 Bay, Escambia, and Santa Rosa Counties. The other five companies are consid- 

 erably smaller, each providing less than 3% of the total service in the State 

 (Florida Public Service Commission 1981). 



The largest of these other companies, the Central Telephone Company of 

 Florida (headquartered in Tallahassee), has nine exchanges in parts of 

 Okaloosa and Walton Counties. The St. Joseph Telephone and Telegraph Company, 

 which has nine exchanges in the region, serves parts of Bay, Franklin, and 

 Gulf Counties, in Port St. Joe (Franklin County). 



The remaining three companies each operate only two exchanges in the 

 region. One of these companies is a Florida utility, but the other two are 

 based in Alabama. The Continental Telephone Company of South's main office is 

 in the Panhandle community of Bonifay, but in Northwest Florida serves only 

 parts of Walton County. As for the two Alabama companies, the Florida Tele- 

 phone company serves parts of Okaloosa and Walton Counties, and the Southland 

 Telephone Company services only a small area of Escambia County. 



A list of these six telephone companies, the location of their headquar- 

 ters, the counties they serve in the region, and the location of their ex- 

 changes within these counties are given in Table 27. 



93 



