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(2)UGI said an average customer's monthly natural gas bill is falling 3 percent, or about $3.50 a month, effective today.
The cut is the third reduction in a year, a trend triggered in part by lower demand due to the recession.
As a result, the average heating customer's monthly bill is decreasing sharply from a record high of $151.47 in the summer and fall of 2008.
It dipped to $127.59 in December 2008, $119.23 in March and $115.70 effective today, according to UGI.
So the typical customer using 8,500 cubic feet of gas per month is paying $35.77 a month less than in summer 2008 and $3.53 less than in summer 2009.
"Part of it is demand being tempered by the economy," explained UGI spokesman Joe Swope on Monday.
"Part of it is a market correction, because I don't know if the market could have sustained those high prices for a long time."
Technically, the smaller monthly bill is due to a lowering of UGI's purchased gas cost rate. The rate reflects what UGI pays to obtain gas on the wholesale market.
By law, utilities such as UGI cannot mark up the cost of the natural gas they obtain and deliver to customers.
So fluctuations in what UGI pays to obtain natural gas on the wholesale market mean fluctuations for its customers.
This latest rate decrease covers about 320,000 UGI Utilities' Gas Division customers in 15 counties, including more than 50,000 customers in Lancaster County.



