Maybe now you can afford to turn the thermostat up a hair.
UGI Utilities said Thursday that it will cut its residential rates another 3.8 percent, effective Saturday.
The reduction reflects UGI's lower costs to buy natural gas on the wholesale market.
With the latest cut, the average residential heating customer's bill will slide to $86.17 per month from $89.55.
UGI has roughly 70,000 customers in Lancaster County, about 90 percent of which are residential.
The new cut was expected, as UGI had predicted in May that it would trim rates by 3.4 percent at the start of December.
The Saturday reduction will be the eighth decrease since UGI rates peaked in June 2008 at $151.47 per month.
After that peak, UGI has raised rates just once, by 3.9 percent in June 2011.
The net result is that, come Saturday, residential rates will be down 43.1 percent, or $65.30 a month, from that all-time high.
Measured another way, residential rates will be the lowest since 2003.
UGI has credited the slumping wholesale price of natural gas to abundant supplies, helped by Marcellus Shale production.
By law, gas utilities such as UGI are required to pass the cost of natural gas they purchase directly through to customers, without any markup.
Gas utilities cannot earn a profit on this "commodity" portion of the bill.
So UGI is neither helped nor hurt by fluctuations in the wholesale cost of gas that they purchase.
Rather, they earn a profit by charging to deliver that gas to homes, businesses and other users.
It's like the way Federal Express or UPS make a profit by delivering packages.
