# Where does natural gas come from?

Source: Commodity Origins, https://commodityorigins.com/commodities/natural-gas/ — data JSON: https://commodityorigins.com/data/commodities/natural-gas.json — license CC BY 4.0 (upstream data keeps its license; see Sources below).

Natural gas comes mainly from the United States, which produced 1,074 billion cubic metres in 2025, 26% of the world's 4,196 billion cubic metres (Energy Institute). Russia (15%), Iran (6.3%) and China (6.3%) follow; the top five together supply 58%. The biggest exporter of natural gas including LNG (HS 2711) is the United States (18% of world export value in 2024, CEPII BACI). The benchmark price, US Henry Hub, was $2.77/MMBtu in August 2026, down 5% from a year earlier (World Bank Pink Sheet). Gas collects where organic-rich source rocks were buried deep and hot enough to crack into methane and then trapped under impermeable seals, which is why the biggest producers sit on the North American shale basins, the West Siberian basin, the Persian Gulf's North Field and South Pars, and the offshore basins of Australia and Norway.

*Mostly methane, produced from gas and oil fields and moved by pipeline or as liquefied natural gas (LNG); priced regionally, not globally.* Also called: gas, LNG, liquefied natural gas, methane, Henry Hub, TTF, JKM, pipeline gas.

## Where does natural gas come from?

| Rank | Country | Production 2025 (billion cubic metres) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 1,074 | 26% |
| 2 | Russia | 609 | 15% |
| 3 | Iran | 265 | 6.3% |
| 4 | China | 264 | 6.3% |
| 5 | Canada | 206 | 4.9% |
| 6 | Qatar | 184 | 4.4% |
| 7 | Australia | 149 | 3.5% |
| 8 | Saudi Arabia | 134 | 3.2% |
| 9 | Norway | 121 | 2.9% |
| 10 | Algeria | 98 | 2.3% |
| | Rest of world | 69.1 | 26% |
| | World | 4,196 | 100% |

Source: Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy, Statistical Review 2026.

Natural gas is mostly methane, with smaller amounts of ethane, propane and butane. It is trapped in porous rock under an impermeable cap, sometimes on its own (a gas field) and sometimes dissolved in or sitting above crude oil (associated gas). Because it forms from the same buried organic matter as oil, only cooked at higher temperatures or from more gas-prone source rock, the map of gas production overlaps the oil map but is not the same. The figures on this page are marketed production, meaning gas that is sold rather than flared, vented or reinjected, as defined by the Energy Institute.

In 2025 United States produced 1,074 billion cubic metres, 26% of the world's 4,196 billion cubic metres (Energy Institute). Russia was second with 609 billion cubic metres and Iran third with 265 billion cubic metres. The top five countries together accounted for 58% of world output, and 49 countries reported production at all. World production was +19% compared with ten years earlier, and output in United States grew at +3.8% a year over that decade, a pace set by horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in shale formations such as the Marcellus in Appalachia and the Permian in Texas.

The geology behind the leaders is distinct in each case. United States output is dominated by shale, where gas is held in the fine-grained source rock itself and released by fracturing it. Russian output comes largely from giant conventional fields in the Yamal-Nenets region of West Siberia, discovered in the 1960s and 1970s. Iran and Qatar share a single offshore accumulation, called South Pars on the Iranian side and the North Field on the Qatari side, which is the largest non-associated gas field known. Australia's gas is offshore on the North West Shelf and in Queensland's coal seams; Norway's is in the North and Norwegian Seas; Canada's is in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. China's rising output comes from tight gas, shale in Sichuan and coal-bed methane.

Production and export are different rankings. The United States and Russia both consume most of what they produce; Qatar, Australia and Norway consume little of theirs and are built around export. A country's position in gas trade depends less on how much it produces than on whether it has pipelines to neighbors or liquefaction plants on its coast.


## Who exports and imports natural gas?

LNG (271111) and pipeline gas (271121) have different exporters: Qatar, Australia and the US lead LNG; Russia and Norway lead pipeline.

### Exporters of petroleum gases and other gaseous hydrocarbons (HS 2711), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | $84.7 billion | 18% |
| 2 | Norway | $54.5 billion | 11% |
| 3 | Australia | $49 billion | 10% |
| 4 | Qatar | $44.6 billion | 9.4% |
| 5 | Russia | $40.5 billion | 8.5% |
| 6 | Algeria | $21.6 billion | 4.5% |
| 7 | Malaysia | $17 billion | 3.6% |
| 8 | United Arab Emirates | $14.6 billion | 3.1% |
| 9 | Turkmenistan | $10.7 billion | 2.2% |
| 10 | Nigeria | $10.7 billion | 2.2% |
| 11 | Belgium | $10.3 billion | 2.2% |
| 12 | Canada | $10.3 billion | 2.2% |
| 13 | Oman | $9.6 billion | 2% |
| 14 | Indonesia | $8.6 billion | 1.8% |
| 15 | France | $8.4 billion | 1.8% |

### Importers of petroleum gases and other gaseous hydrocarbons (HS 2711), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | China | $87.9 billion | 18% |
| 2 | Japan | $47.1 billion | 9.9% |
| 3 | South Korea | $34.1 billion | 7.2% |
| 4 | India | $30.8 billion | 6.5% |
| 5 | Italy | $29.3 billion | 6.2% |
| 6 | Germany | $26.1 billion | 5.5% |
| 7 | France | $19.4 billion | 4.1% |
| 8 | Netherlands | $17.6 billion | 3.7% |
| 9 | United Kingdom | $17.3 billion | 3.6% |
| 10 | Belgium | $15.3 billion | 3.2% |
| 11 | Other Asia, nes | $12.3 billion | 2.6% |
| 12 | Spain | $10.9 billion | 2.3% |
| 13 | United States | $10.2 billion | 2.1% |
| 14 | Thailand | $9.4 billion | 2% |
| 15 | Singapore | $7.6 billion | 1.6% |

### Exporters of natural gas, liquefied (lng) (HS 271111), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Australia | $47.4 billion | 22% |
| 2 | United States | $40.6 billion | 19% |
| 3 | Qatar | $38.1 billion | 18% |
| 4 | Russia | $17.8 billion | 8.2% |
| 5 | Malaysia | $14.5 billion | 6.7% |
| 6 | Oman | $7.3 billion | 3.4% |
| 7 | Indonesia | $6.8 billion | 3.1% |
| 8 | Nigeria | $6.6 billion | 3.1% |
| 9 | Papua New Guinea | $5.4 billion | 2.5% |
| 10 | Algeria | $5 billion | 2.3% |
| 11 | Trinidad and Tobago | $3.7 billion | 1.7% |
| 12 | United Arab Emirates | $3.3 billion | 1.5% |
| 13 | Israel | $2.8 billion | 1.3% |
| 14 | Brunei | $2.7 billion | 1.2% |
| 15 | Norway | $2.4 billion | 1.1% |

### Importers of natural gas, liquefied (lng) (HS 271111), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | China | $43 billion | 20% |
| 2 | Japan | $40.2 billion | 19% |
| 3 | South Korea | $28.8 billion | 13% |
| 4 | India | $14.8 billion | 6.8% |
| 5 | Other Asia, nes | $11.4 billion | 5.3% |
| 6 | France | $10.5 billion | 4.8% |
| 7 | Netherlands | $7.5 billion | 3.4% |
| 8 | Thailand | $6.4 billion | 3% |
| 9 | Spain | $6 billion | 2.8% |
| 10 | Italy | $5.3 billion | 2.5% |
| 11 | Egypt | $4.2 billion | 2% |
| 12 | United Kingdom | $4.2 billion | 1.9% |
| 13 | Pakistan | $3.9 billion | 1.8% |
| 14 | Singapore | $3.4 billion | 1.6% |
| 15 | Belgium | $2.7 billion | 1.3% |

### Exporters of natural gas, gaseous (pipeline) (HS 271121), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Norway | $49.9 billion | 32% |
| 2 | Russia | $21.1 billion | 13% |
| 3 | Algeria | $11.8 billion | 7.5% |
| 4 | Turkmenistan | $10.7 billion | 6.8% |
| 5 | Belgium | $9.4 billion | 6% |
| 6 | Azerbaijan | $8.1 billion | 5.2% |
| 7 | France | $7.7 billion | 4.9% |
| 8 | Canada | $6 billion | 3.8% |
| 9 | United States | $5.8 billion | 3.7% |
| 10 | United Kingdom | $4.4 billion | 2.8% |
| 11 | Myanmar | $3.2 billion | 2% |
| 12 | China | $2.1 billion | 1.3% |
| 13 | Netherlands | $2 billion | 1.2% |
| 14 | Indonesia | $1.8 billion | 1.2% |
| 15 | Bolivia | $1.6 billion | 1% |

### Importers of natural gas, gaseous (pipeline) (HS 271121), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Italy | $22.7 billion | 14% |
| 2 | Germany | $22.3 billion | 14% |
| 3 | China | $21.3 billion | 14% |
| 4 | United Kingdom | $12.6 billion | 8% |
| 5 | Belgium | $10.5 billion | 6.7% |
| 6 | France | $7.6 billion | 4.8% |
| 7 | Netherlands | $7.3 billion | 4.6% |
| 8 | United States | $6 billion | 3.8% |
| 9 | Hungary | $4.5 billion | 2.8% |
| 10 | Mexico | $4.2 billion | 2.6% |
| 11 | Spain | $3.5 billion | 2.2% |
| 12 | Turkey (Türkiye) | $3 billion | 1.9% |
| 13 | Singapore | $2.8 billion | 1.8% |
| 14 | Czechia | $2.8 billion | 1.8% |
| 15 | Greece | $2.4 billion | 1.5% |

Source: CEPII BACI international trade database (HS22, V202601).

Gas crosses borders in two physical forms, and the exporters differ by form. Pipeline gas (HS 271121) moves at high pressure through steel lines and is limited to land neighbors and short sea crossings; Norway was the largest pipeline exporter by value in 2024. Liquefied natural gas, or LNG (HS 271111), is methane chilled to about minus 162 degrees Celsius so it shrinks to one six-hundredth of its volume and can be shipped in insulated tankers anywhere with a regasification terminal; Australia was the largest LNG exporter by value in 2024. Counting all petroleum gases under HS 2711, which also includes propane and butane, United States was the top exporter with 18% of world export value in 2024, and China was the top importer with 18% of import value (CEPII BACI). World exports of natural gas including LNG (HS 2711) were worth $475.8 billion in 2024.

Import patterns follow infrastructure. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have no pipeline connections and take everything as LNG; China was the largest LNG importer by value in 2024. Continental Europe historically leaned on pipelines from Russia, Norway and North Africa and has shifted toward LNG since 2022. China imports both, by pipeline from Central Asia and Russia and as LNG on its coast. Some countries re-export: Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain reload LNG cargoes and forward pipeline gas, so their trade figures overstate their own production and consumption.


## What does natural gas cost?

- US Henry Hub: $2.77/MMBtu in August 2026; 12-month change -5%; 10-year change -1%; all-time high $13.52/MMBtu in October 2005; real high (2024 US$) $21.3/MMBtu in October 2005 (World Bank Pink Sheet).
- Europe (TTF): $21.11/MMBtu in August 2026; 12-month change +89%; 10-year change +421%; all-time high $70.04/MMBtu in August 2022; real high (2024 US$) $74.45/MMBtu in August 2022 (World Bank Pink Sheet).
- Japan LNG import: $13.94/MMBtu in August 2026; 12-month change +18%; 10-year change +95%; all-time high $23.73/MMBtu in September 2022; real high (2024 US$) $25.12/MMBtu in September 2022 (World Bank Pink Sheet).

Prices are monthly benchmark averages that lag the market; not investment advice.

### How it is priced

There is no world gas price. Because moving gas is expensive and infrastructure-bound, each region has its own benchmark, and the gaps between them can be several times the price itself. In North America the reference is Henry Hub, a pipeline interchange in Erath, Louisiana, where the NYMEX (CME Group) Henry Hub Natural Gas futures contract (ticker NG, 10,000 MMBtu, quoted in US$/MMBtu) settles. In Europe it is the Dutch Title Transfer Facility, or TTF, a virtual trading point on the Gasunie network, traded as the ICE Endex Dutch TTF Gas futures (ticker TFM, 1 MW, quoted in €/MWh). In Northeast Asia spot LNG cargoes are assessed against the Japan Korea Marker (JKM), while much long-term LNG is still indexed to crude oil under contracts negotiated in the 1970s and 1980s.

This site's primary series is US Henry Hub, which was $2.77/MMBtu in August 2026, down 5% from a year earlier (World Bank Pink Sheet). Its highest monthly average on record was $13.52/MMBtu in October 2005, and its lowest was $0.14/MMBtu in January 1960; the series begins in 1960. For comparison, the European TTF series stood at $21.11/MMBtu in August 2026 and the Japanese LNG import price at $13.94/MMBtu in August 2026. Read the three together and the regional spread is visible in a single glance.

A quoted price is for a unit of heat, not volume. One million British thermal units (MMBtu) is roughly the energy in 28 cubic meters of gas; a megawatt-hour is 3.412 MMBtu. Henry Hub and TTF quotes are for delivery at the hub in the named month, excluding transport to the customer. A Japanese import price is a customs average of landed cargoes, so it lags spot markets and blends oil-linked contracts with spot purchases. When this page says "gas prices rose", it means the named benchmark in the named month.


## What moves the price of natural gas?

### Weather and heating demand

Gas demand is the most weather-sensitive of the major fuels. In the Northern Hemisphere, residential and commercial heating peaks in December to February, and a cold snap can lift daily demand by a third within a week. Summer heat matters too, because gas-fired power plants run harder to meet air-conditioning load. Traders watch heating-degree-day forecasts as closely as production data, and a single revised two-week forecast can move Henry Hub or TTF by ten percent or more.

### Storage levels against the seasonal norm

Because demand swings with the seasons and production does not, gas is injected into depleted fields, salt caverns and aquifers from April to October and withdrawn in winter. The market compares the amount in store with the five-year average for the same week. A storage deficit heading into winter means less buffer against cold, so prices rise to ration demand and pull in LNG; a surplus at the end of winter does the opposite. Weekly storage reports from the EIA and from Gas Infrastructure Europe are scheduled price events.

### LNG liquefaction and shipping capacity

LNG links otherwise separate regional markets, but only up to the capacity of the liquefaction trains, tankers and regasification terminals in service. New export plants take four to six years to build and arrive in lumps, so the global balance swings between tight and loose as projects in Qatar, the United States and Australia come online. Outages at a single large plant, such as Freeport in Texas in 2022, tighten Europe and Asia at once. Shipping distance and tanker availability set how quickly cargoes can chase the highest regional price.

### Pipeline politics and sanctions

Pipeline gas ties buyer and seller to fixed steel for decades, which makes it a lever in disputes. Russian flows to Europe fell sharply from 2022 as contracts were cut, transit through Ukraine ended and the Nord Stream lines were damaged. Sanctions and licensing decisions on LNG projects, export permits in the United States, and transit agreements between Russia, Ukraine and Central Asian producers all change where gas can physically go. When a route closes, the affected market must pay up for LNG until infrastructure is rerouted.

### Oil prices through contract indexation

Much of the LNG sold to Asia under long-term contracts is priced as a percentage of the Japanese crude import price, typically with a lag of three to six months. Rising oil therefore raises delivered gas costs in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan even when spot LNG is cheap, and buyers respond by shifting volumes between contract and spot. Associated gas also links the two markets on the supply side: when oil producers drill more in basins such as the Permian, gas output rises as a by-product regardless of the gas price.

### Power sector switching between gas and coal

Where both fuels are available, power generators run whichever is cheaper per unit of electricity after carbon costs. In the United States gas displaces coal below roughly $3 per MMBtu and cedes ground above it; in Europe the EU carbon price tilts the calculation toward gas. This switching acts as a shock absorber, limiting how far gas can rise before demand falls away, and it means coal and carbon prices feed directly into gas markets.

### Drilling response and associated gas

Shale wells decline quickly, so United States output depends on continuous drilling. When Henry Hub falls below the cost of dry-gas wells in Appalachia and the Haynesville, rigs are laid down and production plateaus within months. But gas from oil-directed drilling in the Permian keeps coming as long as oil is profitable, which has held Henry Hub down through periods that would otherwise have tightened. Pipeline takeaway constraints out of the Permian can push local prices below zero even while the national benchmark is positive.

## How is natural gas produced?

A gas well is drilled into a reservoir, cased with steel and cement, and connected to a wellhead that controls flow. In conventional fields the gas flows under its own pressure; in shale the rock is first fractured with high-pressure water and sand to open pathways. What comes out of the ground is called wet or raw gas: methane mixed with heavier hydrocarbons, water vapor, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and sometimes nitrogen or helium. A field's gas is characterized by its methane share, its liquids content and whether it is "sour" (high in hydrogen sulfide) or "sweet".

At a gas processing plant the water is removed with glycol, acid gases are stripped out with amine solvents, and the natural gas liquids (NGLs: ethane, propane, butane and pentanes) are separated by chilling and fractionation. NGLs are sold into the petrochemical and LPG markets and can be worth more than the methane. What remains is pipeline-quality dry gas, which must meet a heating value and purity specification before it enters the transmission grid. Sulfur recovered from sour gas is a by-product; helium from a handful of fields in the United States, Qatar and Russia is another.

To export by sea the dry gas is piped to a liquefaction plant, where a series of refrigeration cycles chills it to about minus 162 degrees Celsius. The plant is built in parallel units called trains, each producing several million tonnes a year, and the LNG is stored in insulated tanks before loading. On the receiving end, a regasification terminal warms the liquid back to gas with seawater or burners and feeds it into the local grid. Roughly a tenth of the energy in the gas is used in liquefaction, shipping and regasification, which is one reason pipeline gas is cheaper when the route exists.

The traded products differ by route. Pipeline gas is sold as a flow at a hub, in energy units per day. LNG is sold by the cargo, usually 60,000 to 80,000 tonnes, with the heat content specified because gas from different fields has different energy density. Boil-off during the voyage is used as ship fuel, so a cargo shrinks slightly between loading and discharge.


## What is natural gas used for?

Gas is burned to make electricity, to heat buildings and to drive industrial processes such as glass, steel and cement making. It is also a feedstock, not just a fuel: methane is reformed into hydrogen for ammonia and thus for nitrogen fertilizer, and into methanol; ethane from gas processing is cracked into ethylene, the base of most plastics. Where gas is cheap, as in the United States and the Persian Gulf, fertilizer and petrochemical plants cluster around it.

The balance among these uses varies by country. In the IEA's accounting, electricity and heat generation and buildings together take the largest shares of world gas consumption, with industry and feedstock behind them (IEA, World Energy Outlook 2023). In a gas-poor, coal-rich economy such as India or China, gas is a small share of the energy mix; in Iran, Russia and Qatar it is the dominant fuel for power and industry.


## Supply chain and chokepoints

Gas infrastructure is fixed and concentrated, so a small number of places matter out of proportion to their size. Ras Laffan in Qatar hosts liquefaction trains that supply a large share of world LNG, and every cargo from there must transit the Strait of Hormuz, a channel about 33 kilometers wide at its narrowest between Iran and Oman. United States LNG leaves from a cluster of plants on the Gulf Coast, above all Sabine Pass and Cameron in Louisiana and Corpus Christi and Freeport in Texas, and much of it bound for Asia passes through the Panama Canal, whose transit slots are limited by canal capacity and, in drought years, by water levels. Australian LNG ships from the North West Shelf, Gladstone and Darwin, and Northeast Asian imports funnel through the Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea.

In Europe the chokepoints are pipes rather than straits. Norwegian gas reaches the continent and Britain through a handful of subsea lines that land at Easington, Dunkirk, Zeebrugge and Emden; the Baltic Nord Stream lines, once the largest single route from Russia, were damaged in 2022 and are out of use. Transit through Ukraine ended at the start of 2025 when the transit agreement expired, leaving TurkStream as the only Russian pipeline route into the EU. Regasification capacity is itself a bottleneck: Germany had none until floating terminals were installed in late 2022, and Spain's terminals sit behind a thin pipeline link to France.

Processing is a further point of concentration. LNG liquefaction is engineered by a small number of licensors and built by a handful of contractors, so a shortage of specialized labor or equipment delays projects worldwide at once. Helium and ethane supply depend on a few large plants. And the entire system runs on long-term contracts and dedicated ships, so a lost plant cannot be replaced by buying elsewhere in the way a lost oil cargo can.


## Key companies

- Cheniere Energy: LNG exporter, United States, listed (NYSE: LNG)
- Equinor: producer, Norway, listed (OSE/NYSE: EQNR)
- Venture Global: LNG exporter, United States, listed (NYSE: VG)
- Novatek: producer, Russia, listed (MOEX: NVTK)
- Shell: LNG exporter, United Kingdom, listed (LSE/NYSE: SHEL)
- ExxonMobil: producer, United States, listed (NYSE: XOM)

## Timeline

- 1821: First purpose-drilled natural gas well at Fredonia, New York. It showed gas could be produced and piped deliberately rather than treated as a nuisance from oil wells, starting the local lighting gas trade. (https://naturalgas.org/overview/history/)
- 1959-01: Methane Pioneer carries the first LNG cargo across the Atlantic. A converted freighter proved that liquefied gas could survive an ocean voyage, opening the possibility of trading gas between continents without pipelines. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_Pioneer)
- 1964-10: Methane Princess begins commercial LNG trade from Arzew, Algeria to Canvey Island. The first purpose-built LNG chain established the plant-to-tanker-to-terminal model that every LNG project since has copied. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_Princess)
- 1969-10: First LNG cargo to Japan leaves Kenai, Alaska. Japan, with no domestic gas or pipelines, became the anchor buyer of Pacific LNG and set the oil-indexed long-term contract as the Asian norm. (https://www.conocophillips.com/spiritnow/story/conocophillips-and-japan-mark-50-years-of-lng/)
- 1989-07: Natural Gas Wellhead Decontrol Act ends US price controls. Removing wellhead price regulation let a spot and futures market form, without which Henry Hub could not have become a benchmark. (https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/natural-gas-wellhead-decontrol-1989.pdf)
- 1990-04: NYMEX lists Henry Hub natural gas futures. A standardized exchange contract at a Louisiana pipeline junction gave North America a transparent reference price that long-term contracts and power plants adopted. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Hub)
- 1996-12: Qatar exports its first LNG cargo from Ras Laffan. It marked the start of Qatar's build-out on the North Field, which made a small emirate one of the largest gas exporters in the world. (https://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/raslaffanlng/)
- 2003: Gasunie sets up the Title Transfer Facility (TTF) in the Netherlands. A virtual trading point on the Dutch grid grew into Europe's gas benchmark, replacing oil-indexed contracts across the continent. (https://www.gasunie.nl/en/gas-infrastructure/ttf---dutch-gas-trading-platform)
- 2011-03: Fukushima accident shuts Japan's nuclear fleet and lifts LNG imports. Japan replaced lost nuclear output with gas-fired power, tightening Pacific LNG markets and pushing spot Asian prices well above Henry Hub for years. (https://www.iea.org/articles/japan-natural-gas-security-policy)
- 2011-11: First Nord Stream line from Russia to Germany inaugurated. A direct Baltic route let Russian gas bypass Ukraine and deepened Germany's reliance on a single supplier. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream_1)
- 2016-02: Sabine Pass ships the first LNG export cargo from the lower 48 states. Shale gas turned the United States from a planned importer into an exporter, adding a flexible, spot-priced supplier to the world market. (https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67224)
- 2022-08: TTF front-month price passes 300 euros per megawatt-hour. The loss of Russian pipeline gas pushed the European benchmark to about ten times its pre-2021 level and drew LNG cargoes away from Asia. (https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/08/28/the-big-turnaround-how-europes-gas-prices-fell-from-300-to-35-mwh-in-the-span-of-a-year)
- 2022-09: Nord Stream 1 and 2 ruptured by underwater explosions. The damage removed the largest Russia-to-EU pipeline route from service and made Europe's shift to LNG and Norwegian gas permanent. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream_pipelines_sabotage)
- 2023: United States becomes the largest LNG exporter. With Sabine Pass, Corpus Christi, Freeport and Calcasieu Pass running, US exports passed Australia and Qatar, per EIA data for 2023. (https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61683)

## Frequently asked questions

### where does most of the world's natural gas come from

In 2025 United States produced 1,074 billion cubic metres, 26% of world marketed production of 4,196 billion cubic metres (Energy Institute). Russia was second and Iran third. The top five producers accounted for 58% of the total. Production and export are different lists: the biggest producers use most of their gas at home.

### which country exports the most natural gas

By export value, United States led world trade in petroleum gases (HS 2711) in 2024 with 18% of the total (CEPII BACI). The answer depends on the form: Australia led liquefied natural gas exports and Norway led pipeline gas exports in the same year. World exports were worth $475.8 billion.

### what is the price of natural gas right now

There is no single world price. The US benchmark, US Henry Hub, averaged $2.77/MMBtu in August 2026, down 5% from a year earlier (World Bank Pink Sheet). Europe's TTF was $21.11/MMBtu and Japan's LNG import price $13.94/MMBtu in the same month. Prices are quoted per million British thermal units, a unit of heat.

### what is LNG and how is it different from natural gas

LNG is liquefied natural gas: ordinary methane chilled to about minus 162 degrees Celsius so it shrinks to one six-hundredth of its volume and can be shipped by tanker. It is the same fuel once regasified. In 2024 Australia was the largest LNG exporter by value and China the largest importer (CEPII BACI).

### who imports the most natural gas

By value, China was the largest importer of petroleum gases (HS 2711) in 2024, taking 18% of world imports (CEPII BACI). Japan, South Korea and Taiwan buy everything as LNG because they have no pipeline links, while Germany and Italy have historically relied on pipelines from Norway, Russia and North Africa.

### why are natural gas prices different in the US and Europe

Gas is expensive to move, so each region has its own price set by local supply, storage and pipelines. The US benchmark was $2.77/MMBtu in August 2026 while Europe's TTF was $21.11/MMBtu (World Bank Pink Sheet). LNG links the regions, but only up to the capacity of liquefaction plants and tankers, so gaps persist.

### what is the highest natural gas price ever

The US Henry Hub monthly average peaked at $13.52/MMBtu in October 2005 (World Bank Pink Sheet). Europe's TTF benchmark peaked at $70.04/MMBtu in August 2022, when Russian pipeline flows to the EU fell away. Adjusted for US inflation, the Henry Hub peak was $21.3/MMBtu in October 2005.

### is natural gas production going up or down

World marketed gas production was 4,196 billion cubic metres in 2025, +19% compared with ten years earlier (Energy Institute). Output in United States, the largest producer, grew at +3.8% a year over that decade on shale drilling. The figures exclude gas that is flared or reinjected.

## Sources

- Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy, Statistical Review 2026. License: Free to use with attribution (Energy Institute terms). https://www.energyinst.org/statistical-review
- CEPII BACI international trade database (HS22, V202601), BACI HS22 V202601, fetched 6 September 2026. License: Etalab Open Licence 2.0. https://www.cepii.fr/CEPII/en/bdd_modele/bdd_modele_item.asp?id=37
- World Bank Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), 2026-09-02, fetched 6 September 2026. License: CC BY 4.0. https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/commodity-markets

Text last reviewed 2026-09-05. Cite as: Commodity Origins, "Where does natural gas come from?", https://commodityorigins.com/commodities/natural-gas/.