page_title: Natural gas in the United States
section_title: Gas prices
hierarchical_section_title: Natural gas in the United States / Gas prices
caption_attribution_description: English: Price per million BTU of oil and natural gas in the US, 1998-2015
context_page_description: Natural gas was the United States' largest source of energy production in 2016, representing 33 percent of all energy produced in the country. Natural gas has been the largest source of electrical generation in the United States since July 2015.
  In 2012, the United States produced 25.3 trillion cubic feet of marketed natural gas, with an average wellhead value of $2.66 per thousand cubic feet, for a total wellhead value of $67.3 billion. In 2013, the country produced 30.0 trillion cubic feet of marketed gas. With 7,545 billion cubic feet, the leading gas-producing area in the United States in 2013 was Texas, followed by Pennsylvania, and Louisiana. US natural gas production achieved new record highs for each year from 2011 through 2015. Marketed natural gas production in 2015 was 28.8 trillion cubic feet, a 5.4 percent increase over 2014, and a 52 percent increase over the production of 18.9 trillion cubic feet in 2005. The natural gas industry includes exploration for, production, processing, transportation, storage, and marketing of natural gas and natural gas liquids.
context_section_description: The most commonly quoted producer price for natural gas is the Louisiana-based Henry Hub price, which is futures-traded on NYMEX.
  A barrel of oil releases about 5.8 million BTU when burned, so that 5.8 MCF of gas (at the standard one thousand BTU per cubic foot) releases about the same energy as a barrel of oil. Sometimes gas containing 5.8 million BTU is defined as a "barrel of oil equivalent for energy calculation purposes. When describing reserves or production, however, the oil and gas industry more commonly uses the rounded number of 6 MCF of gas (or 6 million BTU in the natural gas) as equal to one barrel of oil equivalent.
  Since the price of natural gas was deregulated in the 1990s, its price has tended to parallel that of oil, with oil usually at a premium on a BTU basis. But starting in the late 2000s, an abundance of natural gas in North America has caused the price of a unit of energy from gas to be much lower than the price of energy from oil.
caption: Price per million BTU of oil and natural gas in the US, 1998-2015
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