{"id":313680,"date":"2025-11-17T15:01:24","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T19:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/noticias\/natural-gas-price-rises-and-hits-sectors-unevenly\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T16:39:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T20:39:26","slug":"natural-gas-price-rises-and-hits-sectors-unevenly","status":"publish","type":"noticias","link":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/news\/natural-gas-price-rises-and-hits-sectors-unevenly\/","title":{"rendered":"Natural gas price rises and hits sectors unevenly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) published its <strong>Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO)<\/strong> report for November, revealing a progressive rise in the <strong>price of natural gas<\/strong>, showing uneven behavior according to consumption sector. <\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sharp increases in power plants<\/h2>\n\n<p>According to the EIA analysis, the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/news\/enel-starts-up-the-largest-power-plant-in-the-u-s\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">power plants<\/a><\/strong> have been the hardest hit, with the average annual price of natural gas <strong>increasing by 37%<\/strong>, in contrast to just a <strong>4% increase in the residential and commercial sectors<\/strong>. This disparity evidences a growing pressure on electricity generation costs, at a time when demand is intensifying, especially due to the boom in <strong>data centers and cryptocurrency mining<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n<p>This behavior is explained by the direct exposure of power plants to the <strong>wholesale market<\/strong>, where short-term contracts immediately reflect price volatility, while households and businesses are usually protected by <strong>regulated contracts or stable tariffs<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The price of natural gas will continue its upward trend<\/h2>\n\n<p>Although 2024 would close with average prices of <strong>$2.20 per million British thermal units (MMBtu)<\/strong>, the EIA projects a <strong>gradual escalation<\/strong> to <strong>$4.00\/MMBtu by 2026<\/strong>, driven by winter seasonality and a faster pace of exports. This represents a <strong>16% increase over 2025<\/strong> and is in response to robust U.S. exports of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/brief\/fifth-edition\/liquefied-natural-gas-role\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">liquefied natural gas (LNG)<\/a><\/strong>which have put pressure on domestic prices. <\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The consequences for power generation<\/h2>\n\n<p>Natural gas currently accounts for between <strong>40% and 42% of U.S. electricity generation<\/strong>, so for utilities, the increase in price means a <strong>direct increase in their operating costs<\/strong>. For example, Texas, with a high concentration of data centers and cryptocurrency mining, is one of the regions where the demand and price of gas most strongly impacts the planning of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/articulo\/origins-evolution-industrial-electricity\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">electric capacity<\/a><\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What the EIA anticipates for the next few months<\/h2>\n\n<p>The agency forecasts that this winter the Henry Hub natural gas price will <strong>average $3.90\/MMBtu<\/strong>. Although it responds to a seasonal pattern, the sustained increase through 2026 reflects structural changes, such as growing external demand, weather conditions and production that, although high, <strong>fails to fully offset the pressure on supply<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eia.gov\/pressroom\/releases\/press579.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">EIA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Power plants face increases of 37% while the impact on homes and businesses barely reaches 4%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10019,"featured_media":313357,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categoria_noticias":[13026,13036],"etiqueta_noticias":[],"class_list":["post-313680","noticias","type-noticias","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","categoria_noticias-energy","categoria_noticias-oil-and-gas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias\/313680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/noticias"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10019"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias\/313680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"categoria_noticias","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categoria_noticias?post=313680"},{"taxonomy":"etiqueta_noticias","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspenet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/etiqueta_noticias?post=313680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}