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Typical Ohio Gas Customer Is Paying $20 Extra A Month Because Of Cold
By: Associated Press
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Ohio's largest natural gas utility is blaming the colder-than-normal winter for higher bills about to be paid by residential customers on budget payment plans.
Columbus-based Columbia Gas of Ohio says the typical customer will pay $87 a month right away, a jump of $20.
About one in every three of the company's 1.4 million customers uses a budget plan that evens out payments across the year.
Columbia Gas blames the 30-percent increase in budget payments on a jump in natural-gas prices caused by an increase in demand during a winter marked by unusual stretches of very cold temperatures.
The federal government's Energy Information Administration says gas prices hit a four-year high this winter.