CORNING, N.Y. (WETM) – You could soon see a big drop in your gas utility bill. Corning Natural Gas Corporation is among the first to announce lower gas bills for its 15,000 customers.

“The industry itself is quite cyclical, and I’ve been in it over 40 years. I’ve never seen a drop this quickly and this large,” said Michael German, President & CEO of Corning Natural Gas.

Starting June 1st, the company says its “supply charge will decrease a substantial 67% from $0.71509/Ccf in February 2023 to $0.23095/Ccf in June. Though the delivery component will remain unchanged, a customer using 100 Ccf of gas per month would realize a reduction from $182.53 to $134.12, a $48.41 decrease and 27% overall decline.”

German points to several factors for the drop in prices, including the ongoing war in Ukraine.

“The wholesale market went up quite a bit this winter because of what happened in Ukraine and the shortages in Europe. As a nation we were relatively low going into storage, going into the winter. We had a very warm winter, and with the higher prices there was a lot of drilling and increased supply. So, all of a sudden, we’re coming out of the winter with a lot of storage. Demand is down, and the price fell very quickly. It’s not unusual to go up and down, but this size drop is very unusual.”

“Why are you passing off these savings to your customers instead of putting the money back in the company’s pocket?” asked 18 News reporter Nicolas Dubina.

“We’re a regulated utility. We can’t put the money back in the company’s pocket. Whatever we pay for gas, we are obligated to charge that to our customers,” said German.

German says utility companies across the state will be obligated to lower bills, including NYSEG.

“NYSEG I would expect is also buying lower price gas now. It’s a wholesale market. I think we were as quick as anyone to react in the state. These are as low prices as our customers have seen in a very long time.”

18 News reached out to NYSEG to ask what king of change its customers can expect to see on their gas utility bill, but our calls were not returned.