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Natural Gas Prices in 2022

By October 14, 2022Commentary

Natural gas has a couple of major roles in energy use and prices.  It is used by many, perhaps the majority of, Americans to heat their homes.  And it is used to generate electricity, often serving as the backup to unreliable, expensive “renewable” energy.  The insaniacs are trying to get rid of natural gas use.  The US has a ton of it, we should be producing flat out and exporting it to Europe in particular.  But instead it is impossible for people to get new pipeline permits or drill in many places.  So you pay more, a lot more.  See that chart, look at the current price and trend–it is going to cost you a fortune to heat your home this winter.  Or you can burn Dem campaign literature.

Dave’s notes:

  1. These charts illustrate the monthly US average retail natural gas prices from January 2001 to July 2022. Average prices for the Residential, Commercial, Industrial, and Power Generation sectors are displayed, as well as the year over year percent change. Government policies can have a large effect on natural gas prices, by making it more difficult or more expensive to produce or transport gas. For example, see the Center for American Experiment here: https://www.americanexperiment.org/biden-nominees-make-it-harder-to-build-natural-gas-pipelines-with-predictably-bad-consequences/, or Forbes here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2021/04/05/bidens-infrastructure-bill-signals-a-death-sentence-for-natural-gas/?sh=6f90257a5891. These are only two of many examples of articles on Biden energy policies hindering natural gas production and leading to increases in prices.
  2. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) publishes average retail natural gas prices since 1981. We are plotting prices since 2001 for simplicity, since prices for natural gas for electric power production are only available since 2002. The raw data is available here: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_sum_dcu_nus_m.htm.
  3. Fig. 1 displays the average US monthly retail price per Mcf of natural gas. The unit Mcf is defined as 1000 cubic feet of natural gas at standard conditions of 60 degrees F and 14.7 psia, which effectively makes this a mass unit of measure. These values are plotted from the EIA data without modification. Residential natural gas pricing has a very strong annual cycle, generally peaking August each year. The price for gas used for electrical power generation is the lowest of the four rates displayed, but has been increasing rapidly since late 2020. The extreme spike in February 2021 is the due to the winter storm in Texas and Oklahoma. Although current prices are not at historic highs, the increase in recent prices for gas used for power generation will have a large impact on electricity prices. As we published here https://healthy-skeptic.com/2022/10/05/electricity-in-minnesota/, natural gas power plants have made up a larger and larger portion of total electrical production in recent years as coal power plants are retired. This increase in natural gas prices will absolutely be passed through to residential, commercial, and industrial electricity consumers.
  4. Fig. 2 displays the rate of change in the average monthly price, year over year. We are calculating this change from the monthly price data displayed in Fig. 1. The February 2021 winter storm spike distorts the vertical scale, but the annual price change of natural gas for electric power generation has been 40% or higher each month since February 2021, except for February 2022 when the extreme price spike of February 2021 reversed.  

Join the discussion 5 Comments

  • Dan says:

    Why should we export natural gas to Europe? That’s a huge waste of energy for transportation and bad for other reasons as well. There’s plenty of energy close by already and I don’t want to hear any bs about the owner of it being a bad actor when we’ve bed in bed with all the bad actors in the Middle East for decades.

  • JT says:

    If it were only the ‘Dunce in the Whitehouse” it might be fixable. This is the ‘Green Cabal” writing EO’s for the Dunce to sign. He doesn’t even know what day of the week it is. As long as these morons use the terms ‘Renewable’ & ‘Subsidized’ in the same campaign literature, it proves that it’s NOT ‘Renewable’ … because without stealing more of our money to prop it up, it won’t ‘Renew’!

    Electric cars from the 40’s went nowhere because they were as dumb then as they are now for developing and running a country. They are a cute toy that can work for a small fraction of users under a very limited scope. For the rest of us who actually make the country function, they are silly. These ‘green’ zealots need to be banished from all public offices nationwide. If they are so smart, they can start their own companies in the private sector and attempt to run profitable enterprises with their unsubsidized products.

    • Kevin Roche says:

      I used to think everyone would know that these “environmentalists” were nuts, but now I despair because their policies are getting implemented everywhere and destroying the economy.

  • dell says:

    Most people don’t get it.

    Drilling more holes only serves to increase the depletion of the field. It doesn’t provide more oil or gas; it only uses it up faster.

    And other than a single field, Permian, no substantial new field has been discovered in many decades. There are NOT ANY significant undiscovered energy reserves. Period!!

    Keep on dreaming.

    Depletion doesn’t stop. We are sooo .*,%(@.

    The world is over the peak energy plateau and on the way down.

    The U.S. is over the energy hill and on the way down in both oil and natural gas. Even coal is past its peak and quality in decline. Europe is in worse shape. Russia is king of the hill.

    Better put the breaks on using gas for electricity. We are going to be really cold. Very soon.

    Bitching about prices doesn’t address the underlying issues, falling energy supply and U.S. overpopulation and U.S. population growth -including suicidal Minnesota.

    Those millions of U.S. immigrants, illegal aliens, and scam ‘refugees’ all use prodigious amounts of energy. Energy you and your kids will not have because of it.

    Google:

    “People also ask:

    “How long will US natural gas reserves last?

    “The United States has proven reserves equivalent to 11.9 times its annual consumption. This means it has about 12 years of gas left (at current consumption levels and excluding unproven reserves).”

    Source of natural gas…………2019.reserves….2020.reserves
    Lower 48 states onshore………125.9…………….113.9
    Lower 48 states offshore…………6.4…………………5.1
    Alaska………………………………….9.4……………….36.5
    U.S. total…………………………..495.4……………..473.3

    https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/crudeoilreserves/

    Note significant production comes from fracking (Texas and North Dakota).

    Fracking has low net energy, high costs and environmentally damaging.

    Most importantly, wells must be constantly drilled because each fracked well quickly loses production.

    North Dakota is on the way out. It won’t play a significant role in NG supply.

    The gas in Alaska won’t contribute more than 2 or 3 years of supply. AND pipelines have to be built, soon; very expensive and damaging pipelines for little benefit. Building tombstones.

    Oh my, we are already trillions and trillions of dollars in debt with no way to pay it off. Yet we need vast amounts of energy investments.

    (And slam the brakes on population growth while reducing NG electricity generation.)

    I want to wake up from this nightmare.

  • JT says:

    Germany holds most of the EU debt. Germany is going under … hold on to your hats. The best thing that can happen is that we get to witness the destruction well before we have to vote again in 2024. No one supports ‘pollution’ and ‘wastefulness’ … but the nut jobs have weaponized the pseudo-science of carbon as a trojan horse to take control of the world. It’s failing everywhere it’s implemented. Unfortunately, psychopaths don’t adjust to feedback, they are unable to change course in the face of policy failure. These kinds of flaming (elite) assholes will fly the plane into the ground before they ever say they were wrong.

    If sensible people (non-psychopaths) are not awarded the Senate and House, we’re doomed to follow Germany right over the cliff !

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