Henry Hub Gas
CME Group - NYMEX
The price of American gas at a Louisiana pipeline junction, now the supply anchor of the entire global LNG market.
Top Producers
share of 2024 global gas production
Top Consumers
share of 2024 global gas consumption
Main Uses
US natural gas consumption by sector, 2024 (EIA)
Top Exporters
share of 2024 LNG exports
Top Importers
share of 2024 LNG imports
US dry gas production
roughly 107 Bcf/d
as of 2025
US LNG export capacity
roughly 15 Bcf/d nominal, with feedgas peaks near 20 Bcf/d
as of early 2026
Futures contract size
10,000 MMBtu (NYMEX NG)
Shale-era trading range
mostly $2-3/MMBtu
2015-2020
All-time futures settlement high
$15.378/MMBtu
December 13, 2005
Henry Hub is a physical interconnection of more than a dozen pipelines at Erath, Louisiana, and since 1990 it has been the delivery point of the NYMEX natural gas futures contract. For two decades it priced a closed continental market. The shale revolution changed its character: horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing pushed US dry gas production above 100 billion cubic feet per day, and Henry Hub spent most of 2015 through 2020 trading between $2 and $3 per MMBtu, with a pandemic low near $1.50 in June 2020. Cheap, abundant, storable gas made the United States the lowest-cost large gas market on earth.
That abundance built an export industry. The first LNG cargo left Sabine Pass in February 2016, and by 2023 the United States had become the world's largest LNG exporter, ahead of Qatar and Australia. New capacity keeps arriving: Venture Global's Plaquemines terminal and Cheniere's Corpus Christi Stage 3 both shipped first cargoes in December 2024 and ramped through 2025, with Golden Pass following. Every train added converts more domestic gas into a globally priced molecule, tightening the link between Henry Hub and the TTF and JKM prices that the cargoes chase.
The contract itself remains the most liquid gas instrument in the world: physically delivered, 10,000 MMBtu per lot, with a deep options market and a forward curve that carries a pronounced winter premium. The structural question of the late 2020s is whether export demand, plus electricity demand from data centers, lifts Henry Hub permanently out of its $2-3 shale-era range.
How It Trades
| Venue | CME Group (NYMEX), with a parallel financial market on ICE |
| Benchmark contract | NYMEX Henry Hub Natural Gas futures (NG) |
| Contract size | 10,000 MMBtu |
| Price terms | USD per MMBtu, delivered at Henry Hub, Erath, Louisiana |
| Settlement | Physical delivery at Henry Hub; final settlement three business days before the first day of the delivery month. Most positions are closed or rolled financially before expiry. |
| Typical curve | Seasonal sawtooth: winter months (December through February) trade at a premium to summer, with the January contract usually the peak. Multi-year contango or backwardation overlays the seasonality depending on the supply cycle. |
| Liquidity | The deepest gas market in the world: hundreds of thousands of futures lots daily plus a large options and basis-swap complex covering dozens of regional US hubs. |
Where It Trades
approximate share of global traded volume, 2025
Supply and Demand
Top producers
- United States (largest gas producer globally, roughly 103 Bcf/d dry production in 2024)
- Appalachian Basin (Marcellus and Utica, the largest producing region)
- Permian Basin (associated gas that grows with oil drilling regardless of gas price)
- Haynesville Shale (the swing supply closest to Gulf Coast LNG terminals)
Permian associated gas is produced as a byproduct of crude drilling, so a meaningful slice of US supply does not respond to gas prices at all. Storage in salt caverns and depleted fields, cycled between summer injection and winter withdrawal, buffers the seasonal swing.
Top consumers
- US power generation (the largest single use, roughly 40 percent of consumption)
- Industrial users (petrochemicals, fertilizer, steel, refining)
- Residential and commercial heating
- LNG export terminals (the fastest-growing demand source, mid-teens Bcf/d and rising in 2025)
- Pipeline exports to Mexico
Major uses
- Electricity generation
- Space heating
- Industrial process heat and feedstock
- LNG export feedgas
Data center electricity growth from 2024 onward feeds through to gas demand, since gas-fired plants are the marginal generator in most US markets.
What Moves the Price
- Weather: heating degree days in winter, cooling degree days in summer, measured against the 10-year normal
- Storage inventories versus the five-year average, reported weekly by the EIA
- LNG export terminal demand, including unplanned outages such as the Freeport explosion in June 2022
- Associated gas growth from Permian oil drilling
- Power burn and the pace of coal plant retirements and data center load growth
- Hurricane risk to Gulf Coast production and export infrastructure
- Rig counts and producer capital discipline in the Haynesville and Appalachia
Moments That Made the Market
1990
NYMEX launches the Henry Hub futures contract, creating the US gas benchmark.
2005
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita shut in Gulf production; futures spike above $15/MMBtu in December 2005.
2012
Shale supply glut drives prices below $2/MMBtu in April 2012, the low of the early shale era.
2016
First LNG export cargo leaves Sabine Pass in February 2016, connecting Henry Hub to world prices.
2020
Pandemic demand collapse sends spot prices near $1.50/MMBtu in June 2020.
2022
Freeport LNG explodes in June 2022, trapping gas at home; prices still reach about $9.70/MMBtu in August 2022 on global pull.
2023
The United States becomes the world's largest LNG exporter for the full year.
2024
Plaquemines and Corpus Christi Stage 3 ship first cargoes in December 2024, starting the next export wave.
What Changed Since the 2010 Handbook Era
- In 2010 the United States was finishing LNG import terminals; by 2023 it was the largest LNG exporter on earth.
- Shale lifted dry gas production from roughly 58 Bcf/d in 2010 to about 103 Bcf/d in 2024.
- Henry Hub went from a continental island price to the supply anchor of global LNG arbitrage.
- Coal-to-gas switching made gas the largest source of US electricity, roughly 40 percent of generation.
- Data center electricity demand turned long-flat US gas burn into a growth story from 2024 onward.