American LNG Exports Surged. Prices Didn’t.
America is now the world’s largest exporter of LNG. This is a rapid change in status: two decades ago, American natural gas utilities were discussing how to source enough LNG imports for their operations. This year has seen demand for LNG feedgas reach as high as 20 Bcf/day. For context, that’s more natural gas than was consumed by Italy, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Ukraine, and Belgium in 2023 combined, coming from essentially zero LNG exports only ten years ago. American LNG exports are expected to continue rising rapidly, with U.S. natural gas supplying a third of the global market as soon as 2030.
Despite this surge in exports, inflation-adjusted natural gas prices are a fraction of what they were twenty years ago, when Henry Hub natural gas prices peaked at$23.68/MMBtu. Even compared to 2015, when there were zero LNG exports from the lower-48 but supply had surged thanks to the Shale Revolution, today’s real spot prices are low – an average of $3.60/MMBtu inflation-adjusted dollars in 2015, vs average 2025 prices of $3.49/MMBtu.
“We had record high natural gas exports and demand last year, and record low natural gas prices,” said AGA Director of Economic and Regulatory Analysis Liz Pardue.
Last year’s prices and demand are part of a long-term trend. All told, over the last 20 years domestic U.S. demand for natural gas has increased about 50 percent (on top of the increase in exports), while natural gas prices have fallen to less than a seventh of their 2005 maximum. Claims that further increasing exports will automatically increase the prices American customers pay are not supported by historical price data. Higher demand can be beneficial as long as supply keeps pace and allows the cost of system-wide investments to be dispersed across more customers.
The natural gas industry is highly innovative. Producers continually strive for greater efficiency. A well drilled today will be vastly more productive than a well from even five years ago due to advances in lateral drilling and sonar imaging interpretation. With more than 3,352 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas reserves, America has enough energy to meet current demand for a century – a timeline that continues to push further out as we discover new reserves and get better at exploiting the ones we already know of. As long as the infrastructure can be built to connect increased production to export facilities, demand can expand to meet supply, avoiding higher costs for customers.
LNG exports have served as a new type of “baseload” natural gas demand. Because export terminals take years to build continued demand for LNG abroad is durable, they signal producers to invest in supplies and new infrastructure companies to build pipeline and storage infrastructure. If tomorrow European natural gas prices were ten times higher, U.S. LNG exports and domestic gas prices would barely budge in the short run because terminals are already exporting at capacity. Responding to new global LNG demand requires years to build new facilities – time during which producers and infrastructure companies can prepare to expand production to compensate.
LNG growth doesn’t just redirect molecules from domestic uses to exports. It expands the entire system. Large, durable export commitments anchor more supply and infrastructure investments, which benefit the market and all consumers. The scale helps keep U.S. natural gas prices relatively low and stable, as long as infrastructure can be expanded to meet growing demand.
Domestic natural gas is one of America’s greatest energy strengths. We’re well equipped to continue and expand our role in supplying energy for our friends and allies abroad without raising the prices Americans pay at home.