Natural gas for April delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 0.2 cent to $2.282 per million British thermal units at 1:52 p.m. after rising as high as $2.334.

The futures are down 24 percent this year after dropping on March 13 to $2.204, the lowest intraday price since Feb. 15, 2002.

To contact the reporter on this story: Naureen S. Malik in New York at nmalik28@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net