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Households using natural gas are expected to pay an average of $860 this heating season, about the same as last year, despite sharply declining wholesale natural gas prices. The retail costs reductions are lagging because a third or more of the gas being used by utilities comes from storage and was purchased last summer when natural gas prices were much higher. The EIA said the wellhead spot price for natural gas is expected to drop to an average of $6.25 per thousand cubic feet next year, compared with a projected average of $9.17 per thousand 1,000 cubic feet in 2008. Natural gas for January delivery was $5.53 per thousand cubic feet Tuesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The predicted 450,000 barrel a day decline in global oil demand next year reflects the more severe and longer economic slowdown now widely anticipated, the EIA said. Global oil demand declined by about 50,000 barrels a day this year, the agency said. The world used 85.7 million barrels a day in 2008, an amount expected to drop to about 85.3 million barrels a day in 2009. ___ On the Net: Energy Information Administration:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/
[Associated
Press;
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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