Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Daniel Fidell - Brean Murray, Carret & Co.
Daniel Fidell - Brean Murray, Carret & Co.
I'm just wondering if you could give us a little bit more color on some of your assumptions for 2009 earnings guidance, sort of what's built into those numbers in terms of maybe on the utility and non-utility side, and maybe a little bit on the cost side, as well, bad debt assumptions and pension funding, those kinds of issues.
Glenn Lockwood
Like you said, a couple of questions there, but included in the press release with the guidance, we also gave guidance on the expectation of the contribution from our marketing business, Energy Services, of 30% to 40% of overall earnings coming from that business segment. That includes obviously the current status of our portfolio of contracts and what we see currently as the market, if you will, spreads, etc., in those contracts.
Obviously, the timing of the rate case impacting New Jersey Natural Gas is a major factor in the utilities year that we foresee. Larry talked about the customer growth. Over the next two years we're still expecting to see anywhere between 14,000 and 16,000 customer hookups, again, with about that annual margin of about $4 million being generated from that.
On the bad debt expense side, we're watching that closely. The good news for us is revenues, based on what's gone on with wholesale gas prices, if anything are coming down from what we would have predicted just a few months ago, so even if there is an uptick in the rate of bad debt, we think the absolute dollars involved are very manageable and so we don't, on a net basis, don't see a big shift yet in any bad debt experience.
And interest rates, as Larry talked about, with our liquidity and our strong commercial paper program, they remain very manageable for us.
Another major, I guess, I item out there that I know is on a lot of people's mind is what's gone on with the equity markets, the impact on pension and post-retirement medical expenses. In our case and other September 30 year end company's case, the good news offsetting some market declines on the asset side are much higher discount rates needed to value your pension liability. So the combination of bad news on asset returns we see being pretty much offset by higher discount rates needed.
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