Natural gas prices, as with other commodity prices, are mainly driven by supply and demand fundamentals. However, natural gas prices may also be linked to the price of crude oil and petroleum products, especially in continental Europe. Natural gas prices in the US had historically followed oil prices, but in the recent years, it has decoupled from oil and is now trending somewhat with coal prices. The price as at 20 January 2022, on the U.S. Henry Hub index, is US$3.87/MMBtu ($13.2/MWh). The highest peak (weekly price) was US$14.49/MMBtu ($49.4/MWh) in January 2005. The 2012 surge in fracking oil and gas in the U.S. resulted in lower gas prices in the U.S. This has led to discussions in Asian oil-linked gas markets to import gas based on the Henry Hub index, which was, until very recently, the most widely used reference for US natural gas prices. Depending on the marketplace, the price of natural gas is often expressed in currency units per volume or currency units per energy content. For example, US dollars or other currency per million British thermal units, thousand cubic feet, or 1,000 cubic meters. Note that, for natural gas price comparisons$, per million Btu multiplied by 1.025 = $ per Mcf of pipeline-quality gas, which is what is delivered to consumers. For rough comparisons, one million Btu is approximately equal to a thousand cubic feet of natural gas. Pipeline-quality gas has an energy value slightly higher than that of pure methane, which has 10.47 kilowatt-hours per cubic metre (1,012 British thermal units per cubic foot). Natural gas as it comes out of the ground is most often predominantly methane, but may have a wide range of energy values, from much lower (due to dilution by non-hydrocarbon gases) to much higher (due to the presence of ethane, propane, and heavier compounds) than standard pipeline-quality gas.
U.S. market mechanisms The natural gas market in the United States is split between the financial (futures) market, based on the NYMEX futures contract, and the physical market, the price paid for actual deliveries of natural gas and individual delivery points around the United States. Market mechanisms in Europe and other parts of the world are similar, but not as well developed or complex as in the United States.
Futures market The standardized NYMEX natural gas futures contract is for delivery of 10,000 million Btu of energy (approximately 10,000,000 ft3 or 280,000 m3 of gas) at Henry Hub in Louisiana over a given delivery month consisting of a varying number of days. As a coarse approximation, 1000 cu ft of natural gas ≈ 1 million Btu ≈ 1 GJ. Monthly contracts expire 3–5 days in advance of the first day of the delivery month, at which points traders may either settle their positions financially with other traders in the market (if they have not done so already) or choose to "go physical" and accept delivery of physical natural gas (which is actually quite rare in the financial market). Most financial transactions for natural gas actually take place off exchange in the over-the-counter (OTC) markets using "look-alike" contracts that match the general terms and characteristics of the NYMEX futures contract and settle against the final NYMEX contract value, but that are not subject to the regulations and market rules required on the actual exchange. It is also important to note that nearly all participants in the financial gas market, whether on or off exchange, participate solely as a financial exercise in order to profit from the net cash flows that occur when financial contracts are settled among counterparties at the expiration of a trading contract. This practice allows for the hedging of financial exposure to transactions in the physical market by allowing physical suppliers and users of natural gas to net their gains in the financial market against the cost of their physical transactions that will occur later on. It also allows individuals and organizations with no need or exposure to large quantities of physical natural gas to participate in the natural gas market for the sole purpose of gaining from trading activities.
Physical market Generally speaking, physical prices at the beginning of any calendar month at any particular delivery location are based on the final settled forward financial price for a given delivery period, plus the settled "basis" value for that location (see below). Once a forward contract period has expired, gas is then traded daily in a "day ahead market" wherein prices for any particular day (or occasional 2-3-day period when weekends and holidays are involved) are determined on the preceding day by traders using localized supply and demand conditions, in particular weather forecasts, at a particular delivery location. The average of all of the individual daily markets in a given month is then referred to as the "index" price for that month at that particular location, and it is not uncommon for the index price for a particular month to vary greatly from the settled futures price (plus basis) from a month earlier. Many market participants, especially those transacting in gas at the wellhead stage, then add or subtract a small amount to the nearest physical market price to arrive at their ultimate final transaction price. Once a particular day's gas obligations are finalized in the day-ahead market, traders (or more commonly lower-level personnel in the organization known as, "schedulers") will work together with counterparties and pipeline representatives to "schedule" the flows of gas into ("injections") and out of ("withdrawals") individual pipelines and meters. Because, in general, injections must equal withdrawals (i.e. the net volume injected and withdrawn on the pipeline should equal zero), pipeline scheduling and regulations are a major driver of trading activities, and quite often the financial penalties inflicted by pipelines onto shippers who violate their terms of service are well in excess of losses a trader may otherwise incur in the market correcting the problem.
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